UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFO! 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


SEMICENTENNIAL  PUBLICATIONS 


OF  THE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


1868-1918 


42  1     6 


KIPLING 

THE   STORY-WRITER 


BY 


WALTER    MORRIS    HART 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   PRESS 
BERKELEY 

1918 


28412 


TO 

A.  B.  H. 


VA 


PREFACE 

In  the  course  of  an  attempt  to  trace  the  history  of  the  Short- 
Story  in  English  it  came  to  seem  desirable,  three  or  four  years 
ago,  to  examine  with  some  thoroughness,  as  the  terminus  ad 
quern,  the  work  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  The  results  of  this  study 
were  rather  fully  set  forth  in  the  form  of  notes  intended  for 
class-room  lectures.  Revision  and  publication  of  these  notes 
was  advised  by  Professor  Bliss  Perry  of  Harvard  College  and 
by  Professor  Charles  Mills  Gayley  of  the  University  of  Califor- 
nia. To  these  good  friends  of  the  writer  this  little  book  owes  its 
being.  Without  their  criticisms  and  suggestions,  moreover,  it 
would  have  been  even  less  worthy  than  it  is  of  the  author  with 
whom  it  is  concerned.  To  him,  to  Mr.  Kipling  himself,  thanks 
are  due  for  gracious  permission  to  take  from  his  works  the  many 
illustrative  passages  with  which  these  pages  are  adorned. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction  1 

PART   ONE:    THE   INDIAN   PERIOD 

CHAPTER  I 
Settings  5 

CHAPTER  II 
Characters  and  Psychology 12 

CHAPTER  III 
Plots  and  Their  Significance 33 

CHAPTER  IV 
General  Characteristics  of  the  First  Period Ill 

PART   TWO:   THE   PERIOD   OF   TRANSITION 

CHAPTER  V 
The   Transitional   Technique 131 

PART  THREE:  THE  ENGLISH  PERIOD 

CHAPTER  VI 
Settings 160 

CHAPTER  VII 
Characters  and  Psychology 170 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Plots  and  Their  Significance 192 

CHAPTER  IX 
Conclusion    2 1 7 


KIPLING   THE    STORY   WRITER 

53-2./.  S 

H-  -2.S- 

INTRODUCTION 

It  was  as  a  writer  of  short-stories  that  Kipling  first  estab- 
lished his  fame,  and  it  is  mainly  as  a  writer  of  short-stories  that 
he  is  known  to-day.  One  associates  with  his  name,  it  is  true, 
some  significant  utterances  in  verse ;  everyone  who  knows  his 
work  at  all  knows  Danny  Dcever,  Mandalay,  and  the  Recessional. 
But  the  body  of  well-known  and  popular  verse  is  much  smaller 
than  the  body  of  well-known  and  popular  prose.  Of  his  novels 
only  one  has  enjoyed  anything  like  the  vogue  of  the  short-stories ; 
andtewi  reveals  less  the  art  of  the  novelist  than  the  art  of  the 
short-story  writer?]  For  it  is  a  series  of  independent  scenes, 
more  numerous,  indeed,  yet  scarcely  more  closely  connected  one 
with  another  than  the  separate  tales  ^of  the  Soldiers  Three,  or 
of  Stalky  and  Company,  or  of  Sir  Richard  and  Sir  Hugh  in 
Puck  of  Pook's  Hill.  It  seems  then  not  unlikely  that  Kipling 
is  to  be  remembered  primarily  as  a  writer  of  short-stories.  And 
probably  as  the  greatest  English  writer  of  short-stories ;  conceiv- 
ably, even,  as  the  greatest  of  all.  His  work,  it  must  be  admitted, 
is  so  different  from  Maupassant 's  that  it  would  be  folly  to  attempt 
to  establish  the  superiority  of  either.  Yet  if  the  Frenchman's 
technique  is  more  subtle  and  more  highly  polished — the  result 


KIP1  ING    l  III    STOBl    H  /.//  /  B 

.hi  apprenticeship  which  <i i< i«< i  only  in  bis  thirtieth  year,  con- 
trasting Bharply  with  the  Englishman's  early  productivity 
yel  Kipling's  work  has  certainly  the  greater  Bcope  and  the 
r  variety  of  manner.  It  has  greater  diversity  of  times, 
places,  and  persons,  and  greater  multiformity  of  plot.  It  liens 
evidence  <>f  powers  of  observation  and  memory  no  Less  accurate 
and  vivid,  and  al  the  same  time  it  combines  with  these  a  roman- 
tic, ideal,  and  even  ;i  stimulating  or  uplifting  quality,  no1  found 
in  Maupassant.     These  differences  are  due  in  pari  to  tin'  Longer 

od  of  Kipling's  ; n ■  t  i \  ity. 

However,  it  is  always  vain  to  attempl  to  anticipate  the 
verdict  lit'  posterity,  to  predetermine  the  precise  rank  which  one 
of  our  own  contemporaries  may  achieve.  It  is  too  early  to 
distinguish  in  Kipling's  work,  with  anything  Like  certainty, 
1 1 » * •  Bound  from  the  unsound  or  only  half  sound.  For,  no1  the 
leasl  astonishing  of  the  many  astonishing  facts  aboul  him,  Kip- 
Ling  lias,  al  the  present  writing,  not  yet  celebrated  his  fiftieth 
birthday.  Ami  there  is  no  more  reason  now,  at  what  looks  like 
the  conclusion  of  a  third  period  of  his  work,  to  suppose  that  his 
production  has  ceased  than  there  was  some  twenty-five  years 
ago  when,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  tirsi  period,  the  critics  ex- 
pressed th'-  fear  that  he  was  "written  out."  lint  if  it  is  too 
early  to  pas^  final  judgment,  it   is  nut   too  early  to  attempt  an 

initiation  of  his  technique,  to  pay  him  the  compliment  that 
his  preeminence  justifies  ami  demands.  This  is  the  purpose 
of  th.-  pr.s.nt  study.  It  aims  to  observe  from  a  definite  point 
of  view,  as  objectively  and  dispassionately  as  may  he,  the  tech- 
nique of  his  stores,  to  point  out  simply  what  is  there.  Such  a 
study,  it  is  hoped,  may  lead  to  an  increased  appreciation  of  his 
skill,    may    col ivably    make   clear    in    a    measure    some    of   the 


INTRODUCTION  3 

reasons  for  his  success,  and  may  prove  instructive  and  stimulat- 
ing to  those  who  would  profit  by  his  example. 

A  point  of  view  must  be  arbitrarily  established ;  and,  not  as 
a  standard  of  excellence,  but  rather  to  insure  the  relative  com- 
pleteness of  the  survey,  it  becomes  necessary  to  offer  a  kind  of 
definition  or  description  of  the  Short-Story.  The  Short-Story 
is,  then,  to  be  conceived  as  having  for  its  distinguishing  mark 
the  elaboration  in  brief  and  concrete  narrative  form  of  all  pos- 
sible story  elements — of  the  settings  of  time,  place,  and  society, 
of  characters,  emotions,  and  motives,  of  plot,  and  of  the  attitude 
toward  life  which  all  these  reveal  or  imply.  From  this  point 
of  view  it  is  proposed  to  examine  the  whole  body  of  Kipling's 
short-stories,  and  to  study  the  development  of  his  art  as  it  may 
be  traced  through  the  three  periods  into  which  it  naturally 
divides  itself — the  first  or  Indian  period,  in  which  he  wrote 
stories  mainly  of  Indian  life  and  manners,  the  third  or  English 
period,  in  which  he  wrote  stories  mainly  of  English  life  and 
manners,  and  the  second  or  transition  period,  in  which  he  wrote 
some  stories  of  Indian  life,  some  of  English  life,  and  some  of 
both,  combining  the  technical  characteristics  of  the  third  period 
with  those  of  the  first. 


PAET  ONE 

THE  INDIAN  PERIOD 

Rudyard  Kipling  was  horn  in  Bombay  in  L865.  AYith  the 
exception  of  a  risil  to  England  in  1868  1vo!i  he  spenl  the  firsl 
six  years  of  his  lit"  in  India.  Prom  1M71  to  1<S77  In-  was  lefl 
in  charge  of  friends  al  Southsea,  near  Portsmouth.  In  1878 
he  was  placed  in  the  United  Services  College  at  Westward  II<». 
where  he  finished  his  course  in  lss2.  <  )n  his  return  to  India, 
in  the  same  year,  he  became  subeditor  of  the  Lahore  Civil  and 
Military  Gazette.  In  1887  he  was  promoted  to  a  place  on  the 
editorial  staff  of  Tin  Pioneer  at  Allahabad.  In  the  sane'  year 
he  published  Plain  Tales  from  tin  Hills,  his  first  volume  of 
short-stori  Twenty-eighl  of  the  forty-two  tales  had  appeared 
in  the  Civil  and  Military  Gazette.  He  continued  to  write  stories 
for  77"  Pioneer,  and  during  the  nexl  two  years  he  brought  out 
the  collections  entitled  Soldiers  Three,  Tin  Story  of  tht  Gadsbys, 
In  Black  and  White,  Under  tin  D'odarx,  Tin  Phantom  'Rick- 
shaw, and  Wa  WUMi  Wmkie.  In  1889  he  was  sent  by  The 
Pioneer  to  England,  by  way  of  Japan  and  America,  and  pub- 
lished in  thai  paper  a  series  of  Letters  giving  an  account  of  his 
travels.  In  September  he  arrived  in  London,  where  he  repub- 
lished his  Indian  tab's  and  wrote  new  one-  for  Macmillan's 
Magazine.  These,  with  others,  were  puhlished  in  1891  as  Lift  \ 
Handicap,  which  may  be  regarded  as  marking  the  close  of  the 
first   or   Indian   period  of  Kipling's  life  and   work. 


CHAPTER  I 

i 
I 

THE  SETTINGS 

From  1882  to  1889  Kipling  was  connected  with  Indian 
newspapers,  whether  as  subeditor,  editor,  or  correspondent.  His 
business  was  that  of  the  journalist,  to  know  and  to  report  in 
an  accurate  and  interesting  fashion  the  doings  of  the  world 
about  him  and  to  comment  upon  them  and  criticise  them.  Most 
of  the  stories  which  he  wrote  at  this  time  were  written  for  lliese 
newspapers.  They  were,  in  a  sense,  the  by-product  of  his  jour- 
nalistic activities,  the  result  of  the  same  impulse.  Their  very 
brevity  is  clue  to  the  limited  space  at  his  command  in  the  Gazette 
and  The  Pioneer.  The  brevity  of  most  of  Maupassant's  stories 
is  due  to  a  similar  limitation.  We  must  except,  however,  the 
last  volume  of  this  period.  The  tales  in  Life's  Handicap 
appeared  for  the  most  part  in  Macmillan's  Magazine.  They 
are,  as  the  subtitle,  Stories  of  Mine  Own  People,  implies,  Indian 
tales ;  but  they  are  longer ;  and  they  give  evidence  of  more  con- 
sidered composition,  of  more  careful  writing.  Among  them  are 
some  of  the  best  and  most  famous  of  all  Kipling's  stories — ¥h-f. 
Incarnation-  of  Krishna  Muhmney,  The  Courting  of  Dinah 
Shadd.  The  Man  Who  Was,  and  Without  Benefit'  of  Clergy. 
■  Life's  Handicap,  then,  because  in  it  Kipling  could  deal  more 
freely  and  under  more  favorable  circumstances  with  material 
and  methods  which  he  had  already  thoroughly  mastered,  marks 
the  close  and  climax  of  this  first  period.    But  this  and  the  earlier 


KIPLING    I  HI    8T0B1    R  BITER 

volumes  are  all  to  be  regarded  as  t h«-  work  til'  Kipling  the  jour- 
nalist, the  reporter  and  critic  of  tndiari  affairs. 

He  mighl  have  chosen  to  offer  i < »  his  readers  an  escape  from 
the  lit'''  aboul  them,  to  transporl  them  to  more  agreeable  Bur- 
round ings,  to  a  happier  time;  to  reconstrucl  t « >r  them  the 
gorgeous  pasl  of  the  land  in  which  they  were  Living,  and  in  so 
doing  he  illicit   have  found  an  agreeable  relief  from  his  own 

pre< upations.      Happily,    however,    he    believed,    with     Brel 

Harte,  thai  it  was  the  function  of  the  short-story  writer  to  por- 
tray what  was  characteristic  and  distinctive  in  the  world  he 
knew;  li«'  chose  to  make  use  of  his  own  unparalleled  gifts  and 
equipment,  to  carry  over  his  journalistic  methods  into  fiction, 
and  tn  offer,  nol  an  escape  from  reality,  but  a  criticism  and  an 
imaginative  interpretation  of  it.  He  dealt  with  the  Here  and 
the  Now.  He  deall  with  his  Own  People,  whose  bread  and  salt 
he  had  eaten,  whose  wine  he  had  drunk,  whose  vigils  and  toil 
and  ease  he  had  shared,  with  whose  lives  he  passionately  identi- 
fied his  own.  And  it  was  primarily  for  Ids  own  people  that  he 
wrote.  Read,  for  example,  the  opening  paragraphs  of  .1/  the 
.  End  of  iln  Passage,  which  establish  by  effective  massing  of  char- 
acteristic detail  a  highly  significant  setting.  The  thermometer 
marks  one  hundred  and  one  degrees  of  heat  ;  sky,  sun.  and  hori- 
zon are  lost  in  a  brown  purple  haze  or  in  clouds  of  tawny  dust. 
[nside  a  squat,  four-roomed  bungalow,  four  men,  stripped  to 
the  thinnesl  of  sleening-suits,  play  whist  crossly,  wrangling  over 
leads  and  returns,  while  the  tattered  punkah  puddles  the  hot 
air,  whining  dolefully  at  each  strake.  This  moving  picture 
interests  at  oner  even  mere  outsiders;  ii  is  an  emphatic  answer 

to    Englishmen    at    home,    who    assort    that    the    Civil    Service    in 

India  is  the  preserve  of  the  aristocracy;  and  for  the  men  them 


THE  SETTINGS  7 

selves,  the  matter-of-fact,  cynical  heroes — heroes  without  heroics 
— of  whom  and  for  whom  the  story  is  written,  the  recognition 
of  their  own  phase  of  life  must  have  been  a  keen  delight.  Tech- 
nically, the  significant  thing  in  these  opening  paragraphs  is  the 
skilful  interweaving  of  the  narrative  elements :  Time,  Place, 
People,  and  tragic  Plot  are  powerfully  suggested.  And  the 
significance  of  the  whole,  the  arraignment  of  the  home  miscon- 
ceptions, is  at  once  apparent. 

For  time  and  place  the  story  is  typical.  Without  significant 
exception  the  one  hundred  and  ten  stories  of  this  first  period 
deal  with  Kipling's  own  time  and  with  the  India  that  he.  knew. 
Mairy,  like  At  the  End  of  the  Passage,  deal  with  the  drought 
and  heat  of  summer  on  the  plains ;  others  deal  with  the  moun- 
tains, with  the  winter  rains,  with  rivers  in  flood,  with  the  jungle, 
with  the  teeming  cities,  with  the  open  fields,  with  clubs  and 
garrisons.  Every  visible  phase  of  India — it  is  not  too  much 
to  say — appears  in  these  pages.  It  is  an  important  part  of 
Kipling's  achievement  to  have  made  India  known  and  interesting 
to  the  West. 

This  emphasis  upon  settings  is  natural  with  Kipling,  or  even 
inevitable.  Having  spent  his  childhood  in  India  and  his  youth 
in  England,  he  would  be,  by  virtue  of  the  sharp  and  striking 
contrasts,  intensely  conscious  of  the  world  about  him.  He  would 
not  accept  his  India  as  a  matter  of  course,  failing  really  to  see 
it  because  of  its  very  familiarity,  as  men  who  have  lived  always 
in  one  place  accept  their  environment  and  necessarily  remain 
unaware  of  the  characteristics  which  distinguish  it  from  others. 
Because  of  his  English  education,  he  could  see  with  an  English- 
man's eyes;  because  of  his  Indian  childhood  and  his  newspaper 
experience,  he  could  sympathize  with  the  natives  and,  like  his 


X 


v 


KIPLING   fill    8T0R1     R  1: 1 1  /  8 

creation,  and  the  projection  of  himself,  Strickland  of  the  Police, 
kin'W  as  much  aboul  them  as  they  knew  themselves. 

\'<y  virtue  of  his  training,  1 'eover,  Ki|>lin'_r  is  more  than  a 

mere  Englishman,  or  Anglo-Indian,  al  large.  Educated  in  the 
United  Services  College,  subeditor  of  the  "Civil  and  Military 
Gazette,"  he  would  inevitably  be  deeply  impressed  with  English 
institutions  and  with  their  significance  in  relation  to  Anglo 
Indian  affairs.  He  would  be  intensely  aware  of  The  System. 
His  conception  of  this  system  is,  perhaps,  besl  summarized  in 
Tht  Conversion  of  Aurelian  McGoggm.  McGoggin  had  been 
reading  Comte  and  Spencer  and  came  ou1  to  India  with  a  soul- 
less and  godless  religion  which  would  not  work  there.  "  For  this 
reason.  The  Deputy  is  above  the  Assistant,  the  Commissioner 
above  the  Deputy,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  above  the  Commis- 
sioner, and  the  Viceroy  above  all  four,  under  the  orders  of  the 
Secretary  of  State  who  is  responsible  to  the  Empress.  It'  the 
Empress  be  oo1  responsible  to  her  Maker— if  there  is  no  Maker 
for  her  to  be  responsible  to— the  entire  system  of  Our  admin- 
istration must  be  wrong.      Which  is  manifestly  impossible." 

This  pragmatism,  this  estimate  of  a  creed  solely  by  its 
practical  bearing  on  definite  and  immediate  human  interests, 
is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Kipling,  as  the  creed  itself  is 
characteristic.  Submission  to  the  discipline  of  the  system! 
He  learned  it  in  school.  He  learned  it  in  the  Civil  and  Military 
Gazette:  "As  there  is  only  one  man  in  charge  of  a  steamer,  so 
there  is  bu1  our  man  in  charge  of  ;i  newspaper,  and  he  is  the 
editor.  My  chief  taughl  me  this  on  an  Indian  journal,  and  he 
further  explained  thai  an  order  was  an  order,  to  1"'  obeyed  at 
a  run,  not  a  walk,  and  thai  any  notion  or  notions  as  to  the 
fitness  or  unfitness  of  any  particular  kind  of  work  for  the  young 


THE  SETTINGS  <) 

had  better  be  held  over  till  the  last  page  was  locked  up  to  press. 
...  A  sub-editor  is  not  hired  to  write  verses;  he  is  paid  to  sub- 
edit. At  the  time,  this  discovery  shocked  me  greatly.  .  .  ." 
Throughout  his  stories  Kipling  preaches  this  doctrine,  or  illus- 
trates the  lengths  to  which  devotion  or  submission  to  the  system 
must  be  carried.  In  India,  he  says,  men  "do  their  work,  and 
grow  to  think  that  there  is  nothing  but  their  work,  and  nothing 
like  their  work,  and  that  they  are  the  real  pivots  on  which  the 
Administration  turns."  The  phrase  "all  in  the  clay's  work" 
has  the  same  significance.  It  occurs  first  in  the  third  story  in 
Plain  Tales:  "Sickness  does  not  matter,  because  it's  all  in  the 
clay's  work,  and  if  you  die,  another  man  takes  over  your  place 
and  your  office  in  the  eight  hours  between  death  and  burial."1 
Kipling  may  seem  sometimes  to  celebrate  lawlessness,  the 
individual  at  the  expense  of  the  system;  he  may  seem  to  criticise 
the  system ;  but  it  is  always  the  good  of  the  system  that  he  has 
in  mind.  In  The  Incarnatioji  of  Krishna  Mulvaneii.  Mulvaney 
is  drunk  and  disorderly,  overstays  his  leave,  is  in  danger  of 
arrest  as  a  deserter,  and  merits  twenty-eight  days  imprisonment. 
He  escapes  punishment.  But  it  is  on  the  ground  of  his  useful- 
ness to  the  system,  to  his  regiment,  for  the  colonel  "never  knew 
a  man  who  could  put  a  polish  on  young  soldiers  as  quickly  as 
Mulvaney  can."  Kipling  evidently  sympathizes  with  Otis 
Yeere's  having   once   proceeded   on   his   own   initiative    and   so 


1  Kipling  humorously  exaggerates  the  possibilities  of  the  paternalism 
of  The  System  iu  the  plea  for  a  Matrimonial  Department  in  Kidnapped; 
and  again  in  his  prediction  of  how  the  Supreme  Government  would  "handle 
the  situation"  on  the  Day  of  Judgment,  in  On  the  City  Wall.  "Were  the 
Day  of  Doom  to  dawn  to-morrow,  you  would  find  the  Supreme  Government 
'  taking  measures  to  allay  popular  excitement '  and  putting  guards  upon 
the  graveyards  that  the  Dead  might  troop  forth  orderly.  The  youngest 
Civilian  would  arrest  Gabriel  on  his  own  responsibility  if  the  Archangel 
could  not  produce  a  Deputy  Commissioner 's  permission  to  '  make  music 
or  other  noises '  as  the  license  says. ' ' 


10  KIPLING   Till    8TOB1    ll  /,//  /  5 

having  accomplished  things  in  spite  of  the  system.  And  now 
;in<l  again  he  shows  how  the  effective  individual,  as  in  Tin  //"/</ 
of  tin  District,  is  hampered  by  the  ignorant  action  of  the  system. 
Thus  Kipling,  like  the  balladisl  of  old,  is  the  singer  of  the 
dan.  Racial  or  national  self-consciousness  is  induced,  as  in 
the  border  or  outlaw  ballads,  by  opposition  to  another  pace  or 
nation.  And  so.  perhaps  inevitably,  as  an  Anglo-Indian,  Kip- 
ling  celebrates  the  race,  the  nation  and  its  institutions,  and 
insists  u j k hi  the  submergence  of  the  individual.  He  celebrates 
the  individual  only  for  Ins  organic  value  as  a  loyal  member 
of  the  team,  as  a  link  in  the  chain,  a  wheel  in  the  machine.     This 

creed  of  Kiplinjr's  goes  very  deep  and  affects  many  phases  of  his 
technique.  It  leads  to  his  emphasis  upon  the  social  setting^  it 
results,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  creation  of  character  t\  pe-  of 
typical  officer,  official,  and  SO  On — rather  than  of  individuals;   it 

results  in  a  relatively  lighl  touch  on  the  emotional  experiences 
peculiar  to  individuals,  with  the  emphasis  upon  those  common 
to  the  members  of  a  class  or  group;  it  results  in  typical  plots. 
illustrating  various  phases  of  the  social  setting;  and  it  results 
in  the  preaching  of  a  creed  like  that  set  forth  in  The  Conversion 
qj_  Aurelian  McGoggin,  in  a  variety  of  specific  applications. 

Like  .1/  tin  End  of  the  Passage,  many  of  these  stories  deal 
with  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  with  the  hard-working,  self- 
sacrificing  Englishman  to  whom  is  due  in  large  measure  the 
effectiveness  of  the  English  administration  pf  Indian  affairs. 
.Many  others  deal  with  the  Army:  one  group  with  the  officers, 
good  or  had,  effective  or  ineffective,  clever  or  stupid,  hijrh  or 

low.  whose   function   is  to  put   down   rebellion,  to   insure  peace,   to 

command,  with  whatever  tact  or  stern  discipline  may  he  needful, 

the  common  soldiers.      Another  group  deals  with  these  soldiers; 


/ 


TEE  SETTINGS  11 

and  it  is  perhaps  in  these  most  of  all  that  Kipling's  humor, 
tolerance,  and  sympathetic  understanding  are  displayed.  Still 
another  group  deals  with  Anglo-Indian  Society,  perhaps  the 
least  pleasant  reading  of  them  all.  Still  another  deals  with 
the  native  Indians,  or  with  their  relations  with  the  English,  and 
among  these  are  some  of  the  most  poetic  and  effective  stories. 
Common  to  all  these  groups  are  stories  which  deal  especially 
with  child  life  and  stories  which  deal  with  the  supernatural. 
Here,  manifestly,  is  a  wide  range  of  human  interest.  Xo  short- 
story  writer  since  Chaucer  has  evinced  such  catholicity  of  taste, 
such  a  range  of  appreciation  of  humanity ;  so  that  these  volumes 
(of  mere  short-stories  have  much  of  the  /•'  pn si  ntative  quality  of 
^the  Comedie  Ilumaine,  and  do  in  a  measure  for  India  what  Balzac 
did  for  France.  In  addition,  moreover,  to  this  power  of  broad, 
inclusive  vision,  Kipling  has  the  power  of  shifting,  at  will,  his 
point  of  view.  He  sees  the  events  of  his  stories  sometimes  in 
the  purely  comic  spirit,  or  with  eynicism,  grim  irony,  or  satire, 
sometimes  with  that  mingling  of  laughter  and  tears  which  is 
true  humor,  or  which  becomes,  by  a  slight  variation  in  the\ 
ingredients,  pathos ;  and  sometimes  his  mood  may  be  wholly 
serious,  or  grotesquely  tragic.  Here  again  he  reminds  one  of 
Chaucer;  and  he  has  Chaucer's  limitation;  he  stops  short  of 
true  tragedv  bv  reason  of  the  same  lack  of  high  seriousness. 
In  all  this  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  we  are  now  concerned 
only  with  the  stories  of  his  first  period.  Later  stories  involve, 
as  we  shall  see,  marvelously  wide  extension  of  interest  in  times, 
places,  and  persons,  and  considerable  increase  of  emotional 
range  and  deepening  of  emotional  experience. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  no  period  does  Kipling  succeed  in  creating  a  character; 
the  persons  of  his  stories  are  rather  types  than  Individuals. 
This  is  to  say  no  more  than  that  he  is  subjecl  to  the  common 
Limitation  of  short-story  writers;  though  the  limitation  is  in- 
creased by  the  amounl  and  consequenl  rapidity  of  his  work. 
He  is  inferior  to  those  of  his  predecessors  who  wrote  with  slower 
pen-  to  [rving,  say,  of  to  Bret  Ilartc  The  limitation  is  the 
result,  furthermore,  of  Kipling's  emphasis  on  definite  and 
f*>organic  social  groupsj  he  is  less  Likely  to  deal  with  man  as  a 
human  being  than  as  type  of  the  group  of  which  he  is  a  member. 
I  rtain  of  these  types,  because  of  their  repetitions,  stand  oul 
very  clearly.  There  is,  for  example,  the  subaltern,  the  young 
officer  who  comes  c.ui  from  England,  pink  and  white  and  wholly 
inexperienced,  ignoranl  of  the  silent,  sullen  races  whom  lie  must 
control,  of  the  men  whom  he  niiisi  command,  and,  most  dangerous 
of  all,  of  tin'  Anglo-Indian  society  in  which  he  must  mingle.  He 
succeeds  or  fails,  according  as  he  is  fitted  or  not,  by  character 
and  training,  for  his  duties  and  his  pleasures.  We  meet  him 
iirst  in  Thrown  Away,  as  The  Boy  who  had  been  broughl  up 
under  the  ••sheltered  Life  system,"  whose  career  ends  promptly 
in  suicide.  In  contrast  with  him,  Bobby  Wick,  in  Only  a  Sub- 
altern, is  the  type  of  successful  officer.      He  follows  the  wise 

counsels  of  his  father  and  slicks  to  his  regiment   with  matter-of- 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  13 

fact  and  unsentimental  devotion.  Instinctively  he  knows  how 
to  handle  men.  He  reclaims  Dormer,  a  dirty  soldier  who  is  the 
butt  of  his  company,  and  in  the  end,  to  save  Dormer's  life  sacri- 
fices his  OAvn.  He  is  eminently  modest,  completely  lacking  in 
self-consciousness,  an  inexpressive  and  effective  Englishman. 
None  of  these  adjectives,  however,  are  to  be  found  in  the  story ; 
it  is  purely  by  virtue  of  what  he  does  and  says  that  we  reach 
our  conclusions  about  him.  — — 

Adjective  and  epithet  play  a  more  important  part  in  the 
delineation  of  the  Kipling  heroine,  Mrs.  Hauksbee.  "She  was 
clever,  witty,  brilliant,  and  sparkling  beyond  most  of  her  kind ; 
but  possessed  of  many  devils  of  malice  and  mischievousness.  She 
could  be  nice,  though,  even  to  her  own  sex.  But  that  is  another 
story."  In  Three  and — an  Extra  she  was  quite  the  opposite. 
She  attempted  to  "annex"  Mr.  Cusack-Bremmil.  Mrs.  Cusack- 
Bremmil,  however,  though  not  Mrs.  Hauksbee 's  equal,  was  no 
fool,  and  defeated  Mrs.  Hauksbee  in  a  carefully  planned  cam- 
paign. Clearly  our  first  impression  of  Mrs.  Hauksbee  is  not 
pleasant.  But  in  the  "other  story" — indeed  in  all  the  other 
stories  in  which  she  plays  a  part — it  is  in  order  to  be  kind,  not 
only  to  her  own  sex,  but  to  the  other,  though  sometimes  by 
doubtful  means.  The  other  story  is  The  Rescue  of  Pluffles, 
wherein  she  saves  a  youthful  subaltern  from  the  wiles  of  Mrs. 
Keiver  and  restores  him  to  his  fiancee.  "Mrs.  Hauksbee  was 
honest .  . .  and,  but  for  her  love  of  mischief,  would  have  been  a 
woman's  woman."  "She  had  the  wisdom  of  the  Serpent,  the 
logical  coherence  of  the  Man,  the  fearlessness  of  the  Child,  and 
the  triple  intuition  of  the  Woman."  That  is,  she  belonged  to 
the  great  class  of  wicked  persons  who  are  sound  at  heart,  who 
make  no  claims  to  virtue,  yet  do  more  good  in  the  world  than 


1 \  K1PLI  VC    /  ///    S3  0R\    'I  A//  /  B 

many  who  are  reputed  virtuous,  sin-  was  of  the  same  class 
as  John  Oakhurel  or  Jack  Hamlin,  sh<-  is  a  kind  of  rogue- 
heroine,  a  descendant  of  the  picaresque  characters  of  seventeenth 
or  eighteenth  century  fiction.  She  is  thus  a  literary  relative  of 
Terence  Mulvanej . 

For  Mulvaney,  though  in  ;i  very  different  walk  of  life,  is 
similarly  compounded  of  ^r< •« ><  1  and  evil,  of  much  thai  is  best  and 
worsl  in  the  character  of  Tommy  Atkins.  He  is  more  memor- 
able, more  real,  and  more  vivid  than  any  of  Kipling's  characters. 
This  is  perhaps  <  1  h -•  to  the  fad  thai  he  tells  bo  many  Btories, 
thus  revealing  his  character  ;i>  Chaucer's  Pilgrims  'I";  and 
appears  in  bo  many,  thus  reminding  us  again  and  again  of  hi* 

>d  looks,  his  Btrength,  his  wit.  ins  eloquence,  bis  devotion  to 

his  chums,  to  the  service,  and  to  1 r.     Mulvaney  himself  uriv<-s 

the  besl  accounl  of  his  own  character:  "An"  what  am  I'.'"  he 
says  in  Th<  Courting  of  Dumb  ShadcL  "<>h.  Mary  Mother  av 
Hiven,  an  ould  dhrunken,  untrustable  baste  av  a  privil  that  has 

n  the  reg'menl  change  oul  from  colonel  to  drummer-boy,  not 
wansl  or  twice,  bul  scores  av  times !"...  Good  cause  the 
reg'menl  lias  to  know  me  for  the  besl  soldier  in  ut.  Better 
cause  have  I  to  know^nesilf  for  the  worsl  man.  ['m  <>nly  jit 
to  tache  the  oew  drafts  what  I"ll  oiver  learn  mesilf," 
j>  .1.  M.  Barrie,  tasing  his  judgmenl  on  Tin  Light  that  Failed, 
^declared  that  Kipling  was  unable  t<>  draw  children.  One  besi- 
tates  t<>  disagree  with  tin-  author  of  /''/</•  /'<//<  on  such  a  matter; 
and  it  is  doubtless  to  be  admitted  thai  Kipling's  children  are 
imt  altogether  normal  ones,  just  as  Mulvaney,  Ortheris,  and 
Learoyd  are  nut  altogether  normal  British  soldiers.  Appre- 
ciation of  children,  furthermore,  is  scarcely  to  1 xpected  from 

the  cynical  portrayer  of  Anglo-Indian  Bociety,  or  from  the  ad- 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  15 

miring  friend  of  the  soldiers  three.  Yet,  in  the  short-stories 
at  least,  Kipling's  children  are  peculiarly  convincing.  And 
with  good  reason :  for  in  their  creation  he  is  manifestly  drawing 
upon  the  memories  of  his  own  early  years.      Baa  Baa,  Black 

%  Sheep,  for  example,  must  be  very  largely  autobiography.  It 
is  at  least  a  Active  account  of  the  rather  grim  period  which  he 
and  his  sister  spent  in  England,  separated  from  their  parents. 
Largely  autobiographical,  too,  must  be  the  description,  in  Tods' 
Amendment,  of  the  small  hero's  intimacy  with  the  natives,  popu- 
larity with  them,  and  familiarity  with  a  variety  of  their  dialects. 
These,  howrever,  are  less  significant  as  short-stories  than  some 
of  the  other  tales  of  child  life.  Perhaps  the  masterpiece  in  this 
,  way  is  Wee  Willie  Winkle.    It  is  mainly  significant  as  a  thorough 

Y realization  of  the  child's  point  of  view.  The  youthful  hero,  the 
small  boy  of  unlovely  and  permanently  freckled  countenance 
and  permanently  scratched  legs,  plays  the  part  of  an  officer 
and  a  gentleman,  yet  experiences  all  the  childish  terrors  in  the 
trying  situation  into  which  he  is  thrust  by  friendship  and  duty. 
He  is  most  effectively  characterized  by  the  devotion  which  he 
inspires.  Devlin,  glancing  at  the  empty  saddle  and  calling  the 
guard:  "Up  ye  beggars!  There's  something  happened  to  the 
colonel's  son,"  gets  us  by  the  throat  just  as  the  death  of  Bobby 
Wick  does — even  though  we  are  sure  that  nothing  can  happen 
to  Wee  Willie  Winkie. 

This  pathetic  note  is  even  more  emphatic  in  that  subtle  criti- 
cism of  the  sordid  side  of  the  Anglo-Indian  life  from  the  child's 
point  of  view,  in  His  Majesty  the  King,  where  childish  play 
and  prattle  unconsciously  unite  estranged  parents.1  It  is  the 
prevailing  note,  again,  in  The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft,  the 


1  It  is  comparable,  as  a  study  in  the  unconscious  yet  beneficent  influence 
of  a  child,  ■with  La  Dame  en  Blanc,  in  Anatole  France's  Litre  de  Hon  Ami. 


16  hil'i  ING    I  III    8T0B1    n  1:1 1  I  i: 

ry  of  tin-  two  little  drummer-boys  who  inspired  an  inexperi- 
enced and  frightened  regimenl  to  "come  back"  after  it  bad  fled 
under  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  Thej  were  bold  and  bad  and 
frequently  birched,  and.  sprung  from  some  London  gutter,  were 
,ii  the  other  end  of  the  Bocial  scale  from  Wee  Willie  Winkie. 
With  no  less  sympathy  and  with  qo  less  pathos,  though  here  from 
his  own  point  <>f  view,  Kipling  portrays,  in  Muhammed  Di/ru  the 
native  child.  This  is  doI  a  Btory,  bu1  a  sketch  of  the  baby's 
taking  ways  and  of  Ids  death.  In  Tods'  Amendment  finally, 
a  child  not  unlike  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  through  Ids  unconscious 
repetition  of  native  gossip  and  criticism,  suggests  an  importanl 
amendment  to  a  proposed  land  law. 

In  all  of  these  stories  the  children,  while  precocious  and 
idealized,  are  thoroughly  humanized,  mainly  by  traits  of  lovable 
badness.  They  are  thus  the  results  of  the  same  theory  of  human 
nature  aj9  Mrs.  Hauksbee  and  Mulvaney]  their  defects  make  their 
virtues  tolerable.  It  is  through  this  mingling  of  good  and  evil 
thai  they  differ  essentially  from  the  saintly  clergeon  of  ( lhaucer's 
Prioress.  Bu1  for  all  this,  they  are  in  common  with  all 
Kipling's  heroes  and  heroines,  distinguished  persons.  Only 
superlatives  can  describe  them:  Mrs.  Hauksbee  was  "the  most 
wonderful  woman  in  India'":  Mulvaney  was  "the  Inst  soldier 
in  the  regiment";  and  Tods  was  "the  only  baby  who  ever  broke 
the  holy  calm  of  the  Supreme  Legislative  Council."  They  are 
all.  moreover,  persons  who  do  things;  they  are  vigorous,  active, 
self-assertive.  You  cannol  imagine  Kipling  writing  a  whole 
story  aboul  a  hanger-back,  like  Stevenson's  Will  o'  the  Mill. 

These,  tin  n.  are  some  of  the  character-types  portrayed  in  the 

lier  -tories  the  official,  the  subaltern,  the  garrison  "widow." 
Tommy    Atkins,    the    precocious    child.       These    do    not    by    any 


CHAEACTEES  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  17 

means,  however,  exhaust  the  list;  for  these  are,  themselves, 
subject  to  infinite  modifications — there  is  Mrs.  Reiver,  beside 
Mrs.  Hauksbee,  there  are  Learoyd  and  Ortheris  beside  Mul- 
vanej';  and  there  is,  over  and  above  these,  a-  great  number 
of  types  quite  distinct  from  them.  There  is,  for  example,  the 
whole  group  of  native  characters ;  and  these  I  have  not  discussed 
because  no  one  figure  stands  out  like  Mrs.  Hauksbee  or  Mulvaney 
or  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  as  representative  of  them  all.  In  the 
portrayal  of  these  natives,  however,  Kipling  reveals  the  same 
power  of  sympathy  and  understanding.  He  can  put  himself 
in  their  places,  see  the  world  through  their  eyes,  realize  for 
himself  their  emotions,  their  motives,  to  a  degree  possible  only 
for  one  who  had  been  brought  up  among  them,  who  had  spoken, 
like  Tods  or  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  many  of  their  dialects,  delighted 
in  their  society,  and  regarded  them  as  brothers.2  It  is  from  this 
point  of  view  then,  the  point  of .  view  of  emotions  and  motives, 
that  Kipling's  portrayal  of  the  natives  is  best  discussed.  There 
is  no  better  illustration  of  this  phase  of  his  dramatic  power  than 
the  first  story  in  the  first  volume — Lispeth.  Lispeth  was  the 
daughter  of  Sonoo  a  Hill-man  of  the  Himalayas,  and  Jadeh, 
his  wife.  She  had  the  misfortune  to  save  the  life  of  a  young 
Englishman,  and,  in  consequence,  to  fall  in  love  with  him.      The 


2  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  recall  what  may  be  safely  re- 
garded as  a  bit  of  self-characterization  in  Kim.  Lurgan  Sahib  trains  Kim 
and  a  younger  disciple  in  the  art  of  disguising  or  ' '  dressing  up. "  "  Lurgan 
Sahib  had  a  hawk 's  eye  to  detect  the  least  flaw  in  the  make-up ;  and  lying 
on  a  worn  teak-wood  couch,  would  explain  by  the  half-hour  together  how 
such  and  such  a  caste  talked  or  walked,  or  coughed,  or  spat,  or  sneezed, 
and,  since  'hows'  matter  little  in  this  world,  the  'why'  of  everything. 
The  Hindu  child  played  this  game  clumsily.  That  little  mind,  keen  as  an 
icicle  when  tally  of  jewels  [a  game  to  develop  power  of  observation  and 
memory  of  details]  was  concerned,  could  not  temper  itself  to  enter  another's 
soul;  but  a  demon  in  Kim  woke  up  and  sang  with  joy  as  he  put  on  the 
changing  dresses,  and  changed  speech  therewith. ' '  Kipling  is  endowed  with 
this  power  of  tempering  his  mind  to  enter  another 's  soul. 


is  KIPL1  Vfi    /  ///    8T0B1    n  A'//  //■■ 

chaplain's  wife,  being  a  g I  Christian  and  disliking  anything 

in  the  shape  <>f  fuss  or  scandal,  had  told  him  to  tell  Lispeth  thai 
li-'  would  come  hark  to  marry  her.  Three  months  after  his 
departure  the  Chaplain's  wife  told  her  the  truth.  "Then  you 
have  lied  to  me,"  said  Lispeth,  "you  and  he?" 

"The  Chaplain's  wife  bowed  her  head  and  said  nothing. 
Lispeth  was  silent,  too,  for  a  Little  time;  then  she  went  ou1  down 
the  valley,  and  returned  in  the  dress  of  a  Eill-girl — infamously 
dirty,  bul  without  the  aose  stud  and  ear-rings. ...  In  a  Little  time 
she  married  a  woodcutter  who  beal  her, .  .  .  and  her  beauty  faded 
soon." 

The  missionary  is  seen  again  from  the  native  point  of  view- 
in  the  pathetic  farce  of  Tin  Judgment  of  Dungara)  and  the 
ways  pf  the  Governmenl  are  seen  from  the  native's  point  of  view 
in  Tods'  Amcndmeiii  and  in  TJu  H<<i<l  of  thi  District.  And  in 
the  numerous  stories  where  the  native  plays  a  minor  part — 
servant  <>r  coolie,  soldier  or  merchant  there  is  almost  always  a 
glimpse  or  hint  of  his  way  of  Looking  a1  things.  For  pure  native 
psychology  there  is  Dray  Wara  Yow  l><  i .  an  Odyssey  of  revenge 
of  the  wronged  husband  who  follows  his  enemy  over  all  India. 
'"It  may  be,"  he  concludes  his  dramatic  monologue,  "It  may 
be  that  I  shall  find  Daoud  Shah  in  this  city  going  northward, 
since  a  Hilltnan  will  ever  head  hack  to  his  Hills  when  the  spring 
warns.  ...  There  shall  no  harm  befall  Daoud  Shah  till  I  come; 
for  I  would  fain  kill  him  quick  and  whole  with  the  life  sticking 
firm  in  his  body.  A  pomegranate  is  sweetest  when  the  cloves 
break  away  unwilling  from  the  rind.      Let  it  he  in  the  daytime, 

that    I   may  see  his  face,  and   my  delighl    may  1 rowned. 

And   when    I    shall    have   accomplished    the   matter   and   my 
Honour    is    made    clean,    I    shall    return    thanks    unto    God,    the 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  19 

Holder  of  the  Scale  of  the  Law,  and  I  shall  sleep.      From  the 

night,  through  the  day,  and  into  the  night  again  I  shall  sleep ; 

and  no  dream  shall  trouble  me."3 

,  Though  Kipling  is  concerned  mainly  with  the  outward  ex- 
pression of  feeling,4  he  has,  nevertheless,  the  gift  of  seeing  the 
/\-  ... 

y. inside  of  a  great  variety  of  minds;  he  has  also  the  power  to 

vdepict  a  great  variety  of  emotions.  He  is  interested  mainly  in 
the  simpler,  elemental  feelings,  but  he  deals  sometimes  with  the 
more  complex  ones  as  well.  The  Odyssey  of  revenge,  just  cited, 
has  as  its  central  motive,  Hate.  Grief  is  sufficiently  illustrated 
by  such  stories  as) Thrown  Away  and  Only  a  Subaltern.  In  the 
latter  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  the  more  dignified  and  re- 
strained yet  somewhat  grotesque  sorrow  of  Bobby's  captain  is 
contrasted  with  grief  characteristically  disguised  as  wrath  by 
Private  Dormer.  For  mirth — for  the  swiftly  shifting  emotions 
that  accompany  an  intense  situation — read  the  climax  of  Miss 
Youghal's  8a is.      Such  a  scene  is  not  part  of  a  psychological 


study.  The  emotions  are  obvious  and  expressed  in  obvious  ways. 
The  significant  thing  is  that,  in  such  a  story,  they  should  be 
represented  with  so  much  variety  and  completeness. 

Kipling  approaches,  perhaps,  nearest  to  the  psychological 
manner  in  stories  of  Fear  and  Love,  and  of  certain  diseased 
conditions  of  the  mind.     In  The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft  he 


s  This  reads  like  an  expansion  of  the  close  of  Maupassant 's  story  of 
revenge,   Vendetta:   "Elle  dormit  bien   cette   nuit-la. " 

*  Interesting  evidence  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  a  passage  in  From  Sea 
to  Sea  (I,  427).  Kipling  is  describing  a  woman  terrified  by  a  storm  at 
sea :  ' '  By  the  heave  of  the  labouring  bust,  the  restless  working  of  the 
fingers  on  the  tablecloth,  and  the  uncontrollable  eyes  that  turned  always  to 
the  companion  stairhead,  I  was  able  to  judge  the  extremity  of  her  fear.  .  .  . 
The  contrast  between  the  flowing  triviality  of  her  speech  and  the  strained 
intentness  of  eye  and  hand  was  a  quaint  thing  to  behold.  I  know  now 
how  Fear  should  be  painted. ' ' 


m  KIPLINO  THE  8T0E1    R  RJTEB 

Ihms  Bight,  for  tli''  must  part,  of  his  two  little  heroes,  to  trace 
with  care  the  «-•  >i ■  1 1 ■  i •  > 1 1  or  mob  fear  of  a  regimenl  under  fire  for 
the  firsl  time,  marching  slowly  through  ;i  hostile  country,  and 
I » 1 1 1  to  tli'_rlit  in  the  first  encounter  with  the  enemy.  Even  in 
such  stories  as  this,  however,  his  main  interesl  is  not  psychology  ; 

he  is  by  uo  means  giving  us  soul  history  to  the  exclusi< f  other 

matters.  In  this  instance  his  business  is  primarily  to  convince 
the  reader  thai  a  green  regimenl  should  nut  be  sent  into  action 
without  a  leaven  of  veterans;  and  his  story  is  a  warning  example. 
Again,  if  you  read  Th<  Strangi  /.'"/<  of  Marrowbu  Jukes — 
which  is,  as  Andrew  Lang  said,  "the  must  dreadful  nightmare 
of  the  most  awful  Bunker  in  the  realms  of  fancy,"  and  which 
mighl  well  be  primarily  a  study  of  fear— you  find  that  emotion 
is  emphasized  just  enough  to  satisfy  the  short-story  demand  of 
impartial  elaboration,  no  more.  The  narrator  finds  himself 
trapped  in  the  sand  pit.  "The  sensation  of  nameless  terror 
which  i  had  in  vain  attempted  to  strive  against,  overmastered 
me  completely.  My  long  East ...  combined  with  the  violent 
agitation  of  the  ride  had  exhausted  me,  and  I  verily  believe  that, 
for  a  few  minutes,  1  acted  as  one  mad.  1  hurled  myself  against 
the  sand-slope.  I  ran  around  the  base  of  the  crater,  blaspheming 
and  praying  by  turns.  I  crawled  on1  among  the  sedges  of  the 
river-front,  only  to  be  driven  hack  each  time  in  an  agony  of 
nervous  dread  by  the  rifle  bullets  which  cu1  up  the  sand  round 
me  for  I  dared  not  face  the  (hath  of  a  mad  dog  among  that 
hideous  crowd  and  so  fell,  spenl  and  raving,  at  the  curb  of 
the  well.  No  one  had  taken  the  slightesl  notice  of  an  exhibition 
which  makes  me  blush  hotly  even  when  I  think  of  it  now." 
Contrast  with  this  Poe's  77"  Pit  and  lh'  Pendulum;  or  contrast 
.Maupassant's  /.,//  or  his  /.,/  f,  ur.     The  latter  story  begins  with 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  21 


a  discussion  of  the  real  nature  of  fear,  and,  in  the  two  narra- 
tives that  follow,  focuses  the  attention  wholly  upon  that  emotion. 
The  events  are  nothing.  Fear,  according  to  Maupassant 's  theory, 
or  at  least,  according  to  that  of  the  narrator  of  this  story,  is  not 
felt  by  a  brave  and  energetic  man  in  the  face  of  an  attack,  or  of 
certain  death,  or  of  any  form  of  known  peril.  It  is  felt  only 
under  abnormal  circumstances,  mysterious  influences,  vague 
dangers.  It  is  a  kind  of  reminiscence  of  ancestral  terrors.  A 
man  who  believed  in  ghosts  and  thought  that  he  saw  a  spectre 
in  the  night  would  experience  fear  in  all  its  frightful  horror. 
It  is  a  matter  then  of  terror  inspired  by  the  supernatural. 

We  must,  for  fair  comparison,  turn  to  Kipling's  stories  in 
this  kind.  Do  any  of  these  concern  themselves  mainly  with  the 
emotion  inspired,  or  are  they  told  as  effective  or  significant 
stories  merely?  Of  the  twelve  or  fourteen  stories  which  deal 
with  one  phase  or  another  of  the  supernatural,  the  most  im-* 
portant  are  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,  The  Return  of  Imray,  and 
The  Mark  of  the  Beast.  In  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw  Mrs.  Keith- 
Wessington  comes  back  from  the  dead  to  haunt  a  faithless  lover, 
who  writes  the  story  of  his  experiences.  She  comes  back  again 
and  again,  always  in  the  same  way,  in  the  yellow-panelled  'rick- 
shaw, with  the  four  coolies  in  the  black  and  white  livery,  wearing 
the  same  dress,  carrying  the  same  tiny  handkerchief  in  her  right 
hand,  and  the  same  card  case  in  her  left  ("A  woman  eight 
months  dead  with  a  card-case!"  exclaims  the  narrator),  arid  she 
is  always  saying  :  '  It 's  some  hideous  mistake,  I  'm  sure.  Please 
forgive  me,  Jack,  and  let 's  be  friends  again ! '  Only  Jack,  of 
course,  hears  the  voice  or  sees  the  'rickshaw.  Others  ride 
through  it,  horses,  coolies,  Mrs.  Keith-Wessington  and  all,  in 
the  conventional  fashion.      The  ghost  lacks"  dignity,  comes  too 


K1P1  ING   l  111    8T0B1    M  ////  /  8 

often,  '""  openly,  and  talks  t auch;  evidently   Kipling   was 

unaware  of  Scott's  warning  againsl  the  "chatty"  ghost.  Ami 
this  one  provokes  in  the  victim  rather  disgust,  irritation,  aston- 
ishment, bewilderment,  than  pure  terror.  Tfu  Return  of  Imray 
is  more  effective;  its  methods  are  less  conventional,  [mray  had 
disappeared,  and  Strickland  of  the  Police,  the  same  Strickland 
who  later  disguised  himself  as  Miss  Ybughal's  sais,  had  rented 
[mray 's  bungalow  and  taken  over  tmray 's  servants.  Ami  Kip- 
ling, the  Club  quarters  being  full,  had  quartered  himself  upon 
Strickland.  A  dim  figure  stood  by  the  windows.  The  doe-  was 
uneasy  she  ••made  the  twilight  more  interesting  by  glaring 
into  the  darkened  rooms  with  every  hair  erect":  then-  was  a 
Bound  of   footsteps  at    uighl  ;   the  curtains   between   the   rooms 

quivered   as   if  s< 'one   had   .just    passed   through;   the   chairs 

creaked  as  the  bamboos  sprung  under  a  weight  that  had  .just 
quitted  them.  All  this  is  effective  enough;  we  can  understand 
Kipling's  desire  not  to  interfere  with  this  strange  tenant:  and 
we  arc  not  surprised  when  tin'  body  of  [mray  is  discovered  and 
Strickland  at  once  detects  the  murderer. 

S  !l  more  effective,  more  carefully  worked  ou1  along  original 
lines,  i-  77"  M<irl,  <>(  tin  Beasfj  in  which  Fleete,  after  a  riotous 
celebration  of  New  Year's  Eve,  enters  a  native  temple,  and 
grinds  the  ashes  of  his  cigar-butl  into  the  forehead  of  the  red. 
stone  image  of  Hanuman.  Thereupon  a  leper  priest,  mewing 
like  an  otter,  touches  him  and  endows  him  with  the  nature  of  a 
leopard.  The  point  is.  of  course,  held  hack:  I  am  not  sure 
that  it  is  more  than  suggested  anywhere;  hut  it  is  necessary  to 
know  what  it  is.  in  order  to  follow  the  gradual  approach  to  it. 
Tie-  leopard's  8po1  on  Pleete's  body,  his  insatiable  desire  for 
chops     "lots  of  '.in.  ami  underdone     bloody  ones  with  gristle," 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  23 

his  offensive  manner  of  bolting  them,  the  mad  terror  with  which 
he  inspires  the  horses,  his  delight  in  rolling  on  the  ground,  the 
green  light  behind  his  eyes,  the  final  dying-out  of  the  human 
spirit  in  his  wolfish  snarls — these  are  some  of  the  nicely  graded 
details  of  Fleete's  transformation  which  lead  up  to  the  climax 
ofjiorror,  the  scene  in  which  the  leper  priest  is  compelled,  by 
torture,  to  undo  his  work.  As  for  the  emotions  which  accom- 
pany these  terrifying  incidents — the  matter  with  which  we  are 
at  present  concerned — the  mental  states  of  both  the  witnesses 
are  traced  with  considerable  care.  Yet  it  is  apparent  through- 
out that  Kipling  is  more  interested  in  the  bewitching  of  Fleete 
than  in  his  own  or  Strickland's  horror.  To  depict  their  feelings 
he  falls  back  upon  more  or  less  conventional  words  and  phrases 
— hair  rising,  blood  running  cold,  sickness,  frightened  horses. 
The  style  is,  furthermore,  characteristic  in  its  grotesqueness  and 
occasional  jocosity  of  manner.  Kipling,  for  example,  says  that 
he  "laughed  and  gasped  and  gurgled."  And  when  he  and 
Strickland  hear,  in  the  silence  of  the  watching,  something  mew- 
ing outside,  he  says  that,  like  the  man  in  Pinafore,  they  told 
each  other  that  it  was  the  cat.  To  some  readers  these  phrases 
do  not  seem  appropriate  to  the  dignity  really  inherent  in  the 
situation,  they  do  not  like  to  be  reminded,  at  such  a  moment, 
of  a  comic  opera,  they  are  disturbed  by  a  lack  of  unity  of  tone. 
Certain  famous  stories  which  deal  with  similar  horrors,  like 
Merimee's  Lokis,  or  Stevenson's  Okdla,  illustrate  a  consistently 
and  frankly  poetic  treatment  of  the  theme.  And  S.  Carleton's 
The  Lame  Priest  is  an  admirable  example  of  the  successful 
handling  of  the  werewolf  motif  in  the  modern  short-story. 
Here  convincing  realism  is  combined  with  dignity  and  beauty 
of  style,  and  no  one  can  find  the  result  less  effective  as  a  tale 


•j i  A//7  ING    I  III    8T0R1    ii  /.7/  /  I; 

of  terror   than    TK(     Marl,    of  Hi'    Beast.       The  COntrasI    is  sharp. 

8  I  trleton  ventures  to  write  rhythmic  prose,  to  made  use  of 
sonorous  and  nicely  chosen  words,  to  indulge  in  what  we 
should  perhaps  call  fine  writing.  Kipling  is  more  modern, 
the  boh  of  an  age  which  in  its  sophistication  Looks  askance  at 
much  thai  was  once  frankly  enjoyed.  We  have  become  timid, 
Belf-conscious.  We  are  afraid  of  "ranting,"  ye1  some  of  the 
finesl    pas  in   Shakespeare     Lear's   greal   speeches   in   the 

nes,  for  example  -were  written  i'or  no  other  purpose. 
We  remind  ourselves  thai  the  pun  is  the  lowest  form  of  wit, 
and  disguise  our  real  and  human  enjoyment  with  a  groan. 
We  no  Longer  venture  to  say  with  Peter  Pan  and  Beowulf. 
•1  am  the  finesl  boy  thai  ever  lived.''  And  we  stand  in  ter- 
ror of  "fine  writing:"  We  ->>  to  the  other  extreme — "coarse 
writing,"  perhaps,  or  slang.  Hut  fine  writing  sometimes  fits 
tin-  subject.  It  nnist  be  well  done,  of  course;  it  must  be  sin- 
cere,  no1  a  mere  succession  of  threadbare  phrases.  Strong 
emotions,  heightened  moods  naturally  express  themselves  in 
heightened  Language,  in  a  Language  which  approximates  to  that 
of  poetry.  To  exprt  ^  them  otherwise,  if  one  has  such  language 
al  one's  command,  is  insincere.  There  are  moments  when 
slang,  when  breezy  commonplace,  is  the  height  of  affectation. 
In  this  Bense,  Kjpling  is  sometimes  affected.  It  is  an  affectation 
of  which  his  characters,  and  doubtless  their  prototypes  in  real 
lite  us  well,  are  often  guilty.  Perhaps  Kipling  learned  it  from 
them. 

*4^  After  all  it  is  at  bottom  nothing  more  than  the  w-ell-bred 
Anglo-Saxon's  deep  rooted  prejudice  against  self-expression.  A 
form  of  it  appears  in  the  familiar  understatements  in  the 
Be<  wulf.      chancer  La  aware  of  it  when  he  permits  the  lower 


CHABACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  25 

persons  to  do  most  of  the  talking  and  holds  the  gentlefolk  silent, 
in  the  connecting  links  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  Wordsworth 
wrote  by  preference  of  peasants  because  he  believed  that  they 
felt  more  deeply  and  expressed  their  feelings  more  sincerely. 
And  Masefield,  doubtless,  is  of  the  same  opinion.  And  so 
with  Kipling,  it  is  perhaps  simply  a  phase  of  the  characteristic 
reticence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  man  of  the  world  which  leads  him 
to  belittle  the  great  events  of  his  own  stories  by  speaking  lightly 
of  them,  just  as  his  characters  speak  lightly  of  their  own  great 
deeds.  Hence  this  prosaic  treatment  of  the  supernatural ;  hence 
the/absence  of  heroics  in  his  heroes. 

And  hence,  also,  the  sophisticated  attitude  toward  the  passion 
of  love.  For  in  none  of  these  stories  of  the  Indian  period  does 
^  Kipling  dally  with  the  innocence  of  love.  Not  one  has  the 
7  romantic  emotional  quality  of — for  example — The  Sire  de  Male- 
trait's  Door.  There  are  sometimes  glimpses  of  it,  like  the 
unfinished  love  letter  on  Bobby  Wick's  table.  But  even  in 
such  cases  as  this,  if  Kipling  had  elaborated  the  glimpse  into 
a  complete  picture,  the  object  of  the  hero's  affection  would  surely 
have  proved  to  be  unworthy.  Kipling  delights  to  dwell  upon 
little  ironies  of  this  sort.  Thus  in  Wressley  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  the  hero,  a  mere  statistician  and  hack-writer,  fell  in  love 
and  wrote  an  inspired  book  on  Native  Rule  in  Central  India. 
"And,  because  this  sudden  and  new  light  of  Love  was  upon  him, 
he  turned  those  dry  bones  of  history  and  dirty  records  of  mis- 
deeds into  things  to  weep  or  to  laugh  over  as  he  pleased.  His 
heart  and  soul  were  at  the  end  of  his  pen,  and  they  got  into 
the  ink.  He  was  dowered  with  sympathy,  insight,  humor,  and 
style  for  two  hundred  and  thirty  days  and  nights ;  and  his  book 
was  a  Book.  .  .  .  [He]    bore  the  first  copy  ...  to   Simla   and  .  .  . 


hifl  /  m.    I  III    8T0B1    R  /.'//  I  i: 

presented  ii  to  Miss  Venner.      She  read  a  little  of  it.      I  give 
I,,.  u    verbatim     '<>h,   yum-   book!       It's   all   about    those 

u     ahs.      I  didn'1   understand   it.' 

■  ■  \\  ,  of  the  Foreign  Office  was  broken,  smashed,     1  am 

not  orating,     by  this  one  frivolous  Little  girl." 

There  is  no  less  ironj   in  the  notorious  Mrs.  Reiver's  becom- 

g  an   influence   for  •_; I.      Moriarty,   the  civil   engineer,  was 

drinking  Becretly,  when  he  was  drawn  into  the  power 

of  Mrs.   Reiver,  and   he  fell   down   in    fronl    of  her  and   made 

of  her.      He  swore  a  big  oath  to  himself  and  kept  it. 

Ami  he  will  go  down  to  his  grave  vowing  and  protesting  thai 

Mrs,  Reiver  saved  him  from  ruin  in  both  worlds. 

"Moriarity  .  . .  is  married  now  to  a  woman  ten  thousand  times 
better  than  .Mrs.  Reiver,"  but  that,  as  Kipling  is  monotonously 
fond  of  saying,  is  another  story.  Had  he  told  it,  Moriarity's 
relations  with  Mrs.  Reiver  would  have  played  an  important  pari  ; 
it  would  have  involved  a  conflicl  between  the  old,  unworthy  love 
ami  the  new.  ideal  one,  Like  Thi  Phantom  'Rickshaw  or  The 
Gadsbys  <>r  Thi  Courting  of  Dinah  sh<i<l<iy>-[_H\s  heroes  and 
heroines  have  inconvenienl  pasts,  and  it  is  these,  it  is  mainly 
their  unworthy  loves,  that  interesl  Kipling.  He  delights  to 
perpetuate  the  ancienl  "triangle,"  the  tradition  unbroken  in 
Prance,  from  the  fabliau  to  Maupassant,  the  tradition  of  "men 
and  women  playing  tennis  with  the  Seventh  Commandment. y\\ 
One  phase  of  this  tradition  is  what  may  be  called  the  story 
of  the  incriminating  corpse :  the  lover  dies  in  the  lady's  presence. 
or  Bhe  is  confronted  with  the  corpse,  and  there  is  danger  lest  she 
betray  herself,  or  thai  she  may  be  suspected  of  murder.     Several 

the  thirteenth-century  fabliaux  deal  with  this  theme.      It  is 
the  basis  of  the  eighth  novel  of  the  fourth  day  in  the  Decameron, 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  27 

of  Maupassant's  line  Ruse,  of  Arthur  Schnitzler 's  Die  Todten 
Schweigen,  and  of  two  of  Kipling's  stories.  In  At  the  Pit's 
Mouth  the  Man's  Wife  and  the  Tertium  Quid  are  riding  together 
on  the  Himalayan-Thibet  Road,  when  suddenly  the  edge  gives 
way  and  man  and  horse  vanish  over  the  precipice.  The  Man's 
Wife  is  discovered  later,  ' '  a  temporarily  insane  woman,  .  .  .  with 
her  eyes  and  mouth  open,  and  her  head  like  the  head  of  a 
Medusa."  In  The  Other  Man  the  lover  dies  in  a  tonga  and  is 
brought  into  Simla  dead,  "sitting  in  the  back  seat,  very  square 
and  firm,  with  one  hand  on  the  awning-stanchion,  .  .  .  the  wet 
pouring  off  his  hat  and  moustache,"  and  a  grin  on  his  face. 
Kipling  finds  Mrs.  Schreiderling  kneeling  in  the  mud  by  the 
tonga,  screaming  hideously — "Then  she  began  praying  for  the 
Other  Man's  soul.  Had  she  not  been  as  honest  as  the  day 
she  would  have  prayed  for  her  own  soul  too."  Maupassant's 
Madame  Lelievre  is  not  so  honest,  and  Maupassant  preserves 
something  of  the  lighter  tone  of  the  fabliaux,  which  seems,  with 
Kipling,  to  survive  only  in  the  grin  on  the  Other  Man's  face. 
Kipling,  moreover,  avoids  details ;  and  in  general  he  does  not 
venture,  with  the  Gallic  frankness  of  Maupassant,  to  dwell  upon 
the  animal  aspect  of  love.  Nevertheless  his  conception  is  much 
the  same.  For  both  authors,  love  is  a  kind  of  disease,  a  source 
of  evil,  of  bitter  unhappiness,  an  object  of  cynical  or  ironical 
comment.  Bobby  Wick's  advisers  warn  him  against  it;  it  puts 
an  end,  at  best,  to  a  promising  career — to  Gadsby's  for  example 
in  the  army,  or  to  Strickland's  in  the  police. 

It  is  only  in  the  tales  of  the  unions  of  native  women  with 
Englishmen  that  it  comes  to  have  an  ideal  or  poetic  quality. 
Not,  of  course,  in  such  stories  as  Yoked  with  an  Unbeliever, 
To  be  Filed  for  Reference,  or  On  the  City  Wall;  yet  even  these 


KIP1  ING  3  ill    si  in;)    II  /.'/  /  /  B 

again  maj  be  contrasted,  for  Anglo-Saxon  reticence,  restraint,  or 
coldness,  with  Maupassant's  narratives  of  the  French  in  North- 
ern   Africa,   for  Gallic   frankness  and    passion.    (jBul    in   such 

B  '/«///(/  tin  I', tit  and  WUhuui  Benefit  of  Clergy\  the 
beauty  of  tragic  devotion  dignifies  and  ennobles  a  Bordid  sit 
nation.  The  mystery  of  these  women  of  another  and  an 
inscrutable  race  ,  ndows  them  with  a  charm  akin  to  thai  of  those 
beings  of  the  fairy  other-world  who  elude  one  in  the  pages  of 
Marie  de  France.^  So  thai  it'  Kipling  carries  on  the  fabliau 
tradition,  he  carries  on,  in  a  sense,  the  lai  tradition  as  well — 
both  unconsciously,  of  course,  \_  From  this  point  of  view  Without 
/:.  efit  of  Clergy  deserves  special  study.  Indeed  it  may  per- 
haps be  regarded  as  the  masterpiece  of  the  Indian  period,  and 
I  am  reserving  it  for  examination  as  a  kind  of  summary  or  i,\  pe 
of  all  the  a-).,  cts  of  the  earlier  mannejj. 

Kipling,  then,  was  not  interested  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
true  love,  which,  as  Mr.  Crothers  assures  us,  is  smooth  enough 
except  iii  fiction.  y\h-  was  interested  rather  in  its  abnormal 
manifestations.  And  this  is  true  of  his  interest  in  mental  states 
in  general.  When  he  permitted  himself  to  psychologize  at  any 
Length,  it  was  usually  with  reference  to  pathological — diseased 
or  abnormal  conditions.  Half  a  do/en  stories  are  of  this  sort. 
Two  of  these  deal  with  the  special  aberrations  of  the  private 
soldier.  Tin  Mml hiss  of  I'riruti  Ortheris  is  the  story  of  a 
homesickness  for  which  even  his  friend  Mulvaney  knows  no 
remedy.      It   is  the  omniscient  Kipling  who  remembers  having 

o  a  man  nearly  mad  with  drink  cured  by  being  made  a  fool 
of,  who  successfully  pursues  the  same  method  with  Ortheris. 
In  point  of  structure,  of  concentration  and  significant  concrete 
detail,  this  is  one  of  the  besl  short-stories  in  the  volume.      In 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  29 

this  respect  it  is  far  superior  to  In  the  Matter  of  a  Private,  which 
is  begun  by  a  long  disquisition  on  hysteria  in  the  army,  the 
result  of  hot  weather  and  overfeeding,  very  similar  to  an  out- 
break of  hysterics  in  a  girls'  school. 

The  story  follows  as  an  illustration.  It  recounts  how  Private 
Simmons  ran  amuck,  slew  Private  Losson,  and  defied  the  regi- 
ment. "And  they  hanged  Private  Simmons  .  . . ;  and  the  Colonel 
said  it  was  Drink;  and  the  Chaplain  was  sure  it  was  the  Devil; 
and  Simmons  fancied  it  was  both,  but  he  didn't  know; .  .  .  and 
half  a  dozen  'intelligent  publicists'  wrote  six  beautiful  leading 
articles  on  'The  Prevalence  of  Crime  in  the  Army.' 

"But  not  a  soul  thought  of  comparing  the  'bloody-minded 
Simmons'  to  the  squawking,  gaping  schoolgirl  with  which  this 
story  opens." 

Others  of  these  stories  may  be  regarded  as  warnings  against 
overwork.  Combined  with  a  wife 's  infidelity  it  leads  to  insanity 
in  In  the  Pride  of  His  Youth.  Combined  with  an  impracticable 
creed  it  leads  to  temporary  loss  of  speech  and  memory  in 
The  Conversion  of  Aurelian  MeGoggin.  Similarly  afflicted 
with  loss  of  memory,  even  of  personality,  is  Lieutenant  Lam- 
mason,  The  Man  Who  Was.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  highly 
concentrated  short-story  of  the  Indian  period.  In  a  single 
scene,  powerfully  dramatic  and  suggestive,  the  strange  and 
unrecognizable  being  returns  to  his  old  regiment,  the  White 
Hussars.  Bit  by  bit  he  reestablishes  his  identity :  he  recognizes 
the  regimental  tune,  finds  the  secret  spring  in  a  piece  of  silver 
plate,  asks  for  the  old  picture  of  the  piebald  drum-horse,  the 
king  of  the  regimental  band,  and  responds  correctly  to  the  toast 
to  the  Queen,  snapping  the  shank  of  his  glass  between  his  fingers 
iu  the  ancient  fashion.      Gradually,  with  the  help  of  a  Cossack 


is 


KIPL1  VG    l  III    ST0B1    WBI1  EE 

oflBcer,  the  White  Hussars  Learn  that   Lieutenanl   Limmason  had 

l ii   made   prisoner  by  the   Russians  in    L854.      He  could   ool 

explain  how  he  had  found  his  way  to  his  old  mess  again;  and 
of  what  he  had  suffered  or  seen  he  remembered  nothing. 

The  mosl  complete  stud}  in  pathological  psychology,  finally. 
-  .1/  tin  End  of  tin  Passage^  which  opens  with  the  accounl  of 
the  four  men  playing  whist  in  the  heat  of  1 1 1 « •  Indian  summer. 
I Iiiininil.  the  host,  is  the  protagonist.  Solitude,  overwork  again, 
and  th<'  heal  are  the  causes.  The  results  are  insomnia,  melan- 
cholia, irritability,  dreams  that  make  of  the  man  a  terrified  child, 
when  the  doctor  gives  him  a  few  hours  of  artificial  sleep.     Hum- 

niil  said  g l-bye  and  "turned  on  his  heel  to  face  the  echoing 

desolation  of  his  bungalow,  and  the  first  thing  he  saw  standing 
in  the  verandah  was  the  figure  of  himself. . . . 

"This  is  had.     already,'  he  said,  rubbing  his  eyes.     'If  the 

thing  slides  away  from  me  all  in  i piece,  like  a  ghost,  I  shall 

know  that  it  is  only  my  eyes  and  stomach  that  are  out  of  order, 
[f  it  walks-  my  head  is  going....' 

"When  he  came  in  to  dinner  he  found  himself  sitting  at  the 
table.  The  vision  fuse  and  walked  ou1  hastily.  Except  that  it 
casl  no  shadow  it  was  in  all  respects  real." 

No  living  man  knows  what  that  week  held  for  Ilummil. 
At  the  end  of  it  they  found  him.  "The  body  lay  on  its  back, 
hands  clinched  by  the  side...  In  tin-  staring  eyes  was  written 
terror  beyond  the  expression  of  any  pen";  in  the  bed  a  iong- 

i ked   hunting  spur,   to  prevent   sleep  because  of  the  terrors 

which  it  brought. 

These,  then,  are  the  stories  wherein  Kipling  permits  himself 
to  psychologize  at  greatest  length;  hut  even  these  have  not  the 
study  of  pathological  conditions  toe  their  main  purpose.     Tin 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  31 

Madness  of  Privati  Ortheris  is  to  show  how  near  Ortheris  came 
to  deserting  and  how  revolting  the  thought  of  desertion  was 
when  he  was  in  his  right  mind — proof  of  the  deep  loyalty  of 
the  British  soldier.  In  the  Matter  of  a  Private  is  really  the 
story  of  the  daring  capture  of  the  murderer  by  Corporal  Slane, 
who  risked  his  life — as  he  explains  with  characteristic  modesty 
and  dislike  of  heroic  pose — in  order  that  he  might  have  four 
battery  horses  to  draw  the  carriage  at  his  wedding.  In  the 
J'ride  of  His  Youth  is  a  disquisition  on  the  ancient  text,  a  young 
man  married  is  a  young  man  marred.  The  Conversion  of 
Aurelian  McGoggin  is  perhaps  an  exception;  it  is  mainly  a 
studj'  in  aphasia.  But  it  expounds  also  McGoggin 's  creed  and 
explains  why  that  creed  won't  work  in  India.  The  Man  Who 
Was  is  largely  a  warning  against  the  Russian  peril  and  an 
attack  'on  the  Russian  character.  And  finally,  At  the  End  of 
the  Passage  is  concerned  with  many  things  beside  the  hallucina- 
tions of  Hummil.  Its  aim  is,  primarily,  to  picture  time  and 
place,  and  to  show  the  heroic,  unassuming,  hopeless,  and  utterly 
unappreciated  self-sacrifice  of  Hummil  and  his  three  friends. 
This  reaches  a  climax  in  Hummil 's  refusal  to  ask  for  sick  leave, 
because  the  man  who  would  have  to  take  his  place  was  married; 
yet  Hummil  foresaw  his  own  end.  With  this  story  Maupas- 
sant's Lc  Horla  offers  a  suggestive  contrast.  It  deals  with  a 
single  theme  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  story  that  is  not  related 
to  it.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  journal;  the  reader's  attention  is 
focused  on  the  emotional  experiences  of  the  writer;  all  else  is 
ill-defined.  The  style  is  poetic ;  nowhere  else  does  Maupassant, 
who  cared  little  for  the  enchantments  of  the  Middle  Age,  write 
so  eloquently  of  Rouen  or  of  Mont  St.  Michel.  Again  and  again, 
and  more  and  more  emphatically  he  speaks  of  the  mystery  of 


hin  1  \<.   1 II I    8T0B1    n  LI  1 1  i: 

the  unseen  world  all  about  us.      It'  1 1 « -  seems  for  a  momenl   to 

•i  a  matter  which  is  in  reality  connected  with 

this  t In  ii i        Qraduall)    it   becomes  clear  thai   he  has  been  en- 

I   by   the    Horla,   tli<-   invisible,    impalpable,   ye1    material 

o  has  taken  possession  of  his  very  soul,  subjected  liis 

will,  mastered  him,  as  man  masters  horse  or  dog.      Incidentally 

tin!-.-  is  an  experiment  in  hypnotism,  the  narrator's  cousin  car- 

ag  (.in    much    ;ilt;! in-i    her   will    a    posthypnotic   suggestion. 

This,  ii  appears  presently,  is  for  analogy:  just  as  the  hypnotisl 

controls  the  actions  of  his  subject,  even  so  the  Horla  controls 

hi-;  victim. 


CHAPTEE  III 

PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE 

What  one  may  perhaps  call  the  static  elements  of  narration 

— the  time,  the  place,  the  social  group,  the  persons,  with  their 

characters  and  their  mental  states — all  these  are  bodied  forth 

with   extraordinary  variety  and   completeness.       It  remains  to 

study  the  means  by  which  they  are  made  effective  and  active, 

and  the  implications  of  their  actions. 

v      The  impression  that  one  carries  away  from  the  reading  of 

Kipling  is  the   impression  of  vividness,   of  having  had  a  real 

experience.     After  a  day  with  those  moving  pictures  of  Indian 

life — Plain  Talcs,  or  Soldiers  Three,  or  Black  and  White — I  come 

out  into  the  California  sunlight,  blinking  and  rubbing  my  eyes, 

astonished  to  find  myself  at  home.      This  immediacy  of  effect, 

this  illusion  of  reality,  is  not  wholly  explicable.     It  is  Kipling's 

special  secret,  the  professional  trick  which  is  his  stock  in  trade. . 

Undoubtedly  it  is  due  to  a  variety  of  causes,  and  some  of  these, 

at  least,  are  not  wholly  concealed  by  the  perfection  of  his  art. 

One  of  them  is  what  the  rhetoricians  call  "external  structure" —  — 

j 

the  method  of  setting  the  story  before  the  reader.  Exactly  half  IV 
of  the  stories  of  this  first  period  are  told  in  the  first  person,  or 
definitely  betray,  in  some  way,  the  presence  of  a  narrator  behind 
the  narrative.  /In  many  instances  Kipling  himself,  in  his  own 
person,  tells  the  story,  and  plays,  at  the  same  time,  a  minor, 
though  more  or  less  active,  part  in  it.      I  mean  that  when  lie  is 


KIP1  ING   l  Hi    BTOBl    H  A'///  B 

function    is   more   than    thai    of   mere   eyewitness. 

i        .  when  the  Major  Learns  of  The  Boy's 

nee  appeals  to  Kipling  for  help     to  Kipling  the 

EL   thought  for  ;i  minute,  and  said,  'Can  you  lie?' 
Vmii  know  best,'  I  answered.     'It's  my  profession.' 

El  h   Kipling  the  journalist,  again,  thai   we  Learn  the 

u  ho   Would  b<    Kii  ".  K  ipling  the  reporter 
/;  m     manifestly   Thi    Pioneer),  who  some- 

times wore  dress  clothes  and  consorted  with  Princes  and  Politi- 
b,  drinking  from  crystal  and  eating  from  silver,  ami  sometimes 
lay  "Ht  upon  the  ground  and  devoured  what  he  could  gel  from 
a  plate  made  of  leaves,  and  drank  the  running  water,  and  slept 
under  the  same  rug  as  his  servant.      It   was  "all  in  the  day's 
rk."      It    is  in   the  pressroom  of  the   paper  thai    the   great 
adventure  begins  and  ends;  and  it  is.  in  part,  by  means  of  this 
ilistic,  vivid,  and.  so  to  speak,  highly  personalized  setting  for 
the  t«-llin'_r  of  the  tale,  thai  the  story  of  the  wanderer  is  made 
dible. 

"I"  of  these  stories  is.  then,  Kipling  himself,  Kipling 
journalist,  nol  a  mere  idealized  projection  of*  his  own  per- 
ils has  Little  adventures,  amusing  or  otherwise,  of 
which  he  makes  copy.      Be  entertains  .1   Friend's  Friend  with 
■ous  and  comic  results;  a  sweetmeal  seller  takes  gradual 
sion  of  a  corner  of  his  garden;  he  becomes  attached  to  a 
native  baby,  wi  :  he  finds  a  terrible  hidden  well,  a  trap 

the   reporter's   or   author's   notebook    in    The    Three 

I  in  Tin  <-,,„,■■  ■  /,  sin, ,1,1,  he  is  ,.ii  duty  as  special 

at  with  the  A i in \  of  the  South.      It  is  dearly  Kipling  the  jour- 

/'"     Tracl    of  a    Lie.      Be    follows  it   through   all   the 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  35 

for  man  and  beast,  in  a  maze  of  jungle-grass ;  he  visits  "The 
City  of  Dreadful  Night."  In  the  story  of  sham  magic,  In  the 
House  of  Sv.ddhoo]  he  plays  a  more  more  important  part,  and 
though  present  a,s  mere  observer,  he  lays  himself  "open  to  the 
charge  of  aiding  and  abetting  the  seal-cutter  in  obtaining  money 
under  false  pretences"  and  fears  that  he  will  presently  be  privy 
to  a  murder  in  the  House  of  Suddhoo.2 

Kipling  appears  in  his  own  person,  briefly  but  impressively, 
because  unexpectedly,  at  the  end  of  a  number  of  these  stories. 
"This  is  true,"  he  implies,  "for  I  was  there  and  saw  it  all  or 
even  took  part  in  it."  Thus  Three  and — an  Extra  concludes: 
"Then  said  Mrs.  Hauksbee  to  me — she  looked  a  trifle  faded  and 
jaded  in  the  lamplight — '  Take  my  word  for  it,  the  silliest  woman 
can  manage  a  clever  man ;  but  it  needs  a  very  clever  woman  to 
manage  a  fool.'  Then  we  went  in  to  supper."  And  in  the 
course  of  Miss  Toughed' 's  Seiis,  while  Strickland,  in  disguise,  was 
serving  as  Miss  Youghars  groom,  "all  trace  of  him  was  lost, 
until  a  sals  met  me  on  the  Simla  Mall  with  this  extraordinary 
note: 

Dear  old  Man, — Please  give  "bearer  a  box  of  cheroots.  ...  I  '11  repay  when 
1  reappear ;   but  at  present  I  'm  out  of  society. 

Yours, 

E.  Strickland. 

That  so/is  was  Strickland.  .  .  .  The  poor  fellow  was  suffering  for 
an  English  smoke,  and  knew  that,  whatever  happened,  I  should 
hold  my  tongue  till  the  business  was  over." 

At  the  end  of  Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office  Kipling  comes 
across,  on  Wressley 's  shelves,  the  only  existing  copy  of  Native 


2  In  From  Sea  to  Sea,  a  record  of  actual  events,  Kipling's  account  of 
a  similar  entanglement  in  Chinatown,  San  Francisco,  is  written  in  precisely 
the  same  manner. 


KIPLING    l  III    8T0B1    M  SITES 

l;  Central  I na  ;.  the  copy   thai    Miss   Venner  could   ool 

un<  rake  it  and  keep  it."  said   Wressley.      "Write 

iur  |  ••  1 1 1 1  \  farthing  yarns  aboul   its  birth.      Perhaps — 
perhaps     the  whole  business  ma}    have  been  ordained  to  thai 
end."      V  the  end  of  fin  Other  Man,  it  was  Kipling  who  saw. 
under  the  Tonga  Office  lamps,  Mrs.  Schreiderling  kneeling  in 
.i.l  l.\  the  back  seal  of  the  oewly  arrived  tonga,  scream- 
iusIj  . 
metimes  Kipling  reveals  the  fad  thai  he  has  been  presenl 
)>\  d  opinion  concerning  some  phase  of  the  action. 

When  The  Worm  ^<>\  even  with  the  senior  subaltern  by  imper 
Bonating  a  wife  whom  the  latter  had  married  and  deserted,  "no 
ng, ..."  Bays  Kipling,  "could  account  for  The  Worm's  dis- 
.  thai  night.  Personally,  I  think  it  was  in  bad  taste.  Besides 
being  dangerous."  In  Tht  Bronckkorsl  Divorce  Cast,  "no 
jni'  knew,  would  convid  a  man  .  .  .  on  native  evidence  in  a 

land  where  yon  can  buy  a  murder  charge."  And  one  of  the 
aracters  in  Tin  Bisara  of Poor  a  was  "Pack — 'Grubby"  Pack, 
as  W(  used  to  call  him."  Sometimes  it  turns  out  that  Kipling 
has  played  a  more  important  pari  in  the  events  of  the  story. 
He  was  responsible  for  the  Rout  of  tin  Whiti  Hussars  by  the 
appearance,  as  if  from  the  grave,  of  the  old  drum-horse,  who 
been  supposedly  shot,  with  a  skeleton  on  his  back.  "I 
happen  to  know  something  aboul  it."  he  says,  "because  I  pre- 
pared  the  Drum-Horse  for  his  resurrection.  He  did  not  take 
kindly  to  the  skeleton  at  all."  Kipling  assists  his  friend  Strick- 
land in  7/  Return  of  Imray  and  in  Tin  Mark  <>f  tin  Beast, 
wh(  the    relatively    passive    part    of    Dr.    Watson    to 

Strickland's  Sherlock   Holmes.      In    Thrown  Away  he  aids  the 
Major  in  disguising  and  concealing  the  tacts  of  The  Boy's  death. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  37 

J 11  False  Dawn  it  is  he  who  manages  to  set  things  right  when 
Saumarez  proposes  in  a  dust-storm  to  the  wrong  Miss  Copleigh. 
In  The  Madness  of  Private  Ortheris) it  is  he  who  suggests  and 
effects  the  cure.  And  it  is  he,  similarly,  who  suggests  to  the 
King  the  proper  method  of  dealing  with  the  recalcitrant  Namgay 
Doola,  the  Irish-Indian,  who  is  constitutionally  "agin  the  gov- 
ernment" by  virtue  of  his  Celtic  blood,  but  is  won  over  to 
devoted  loyalty  when  he  is  made  commander-in-chief  of  the 
army.  Kipling  plays  a  less  intelligent  part,  finally,  in  On  the 
City  WalU  wherein  he  is  tricked  by  a  clever  woman  into  assist- 
ing in  the  escape  of  a  native  prisoner  of  importance  from  the 
English  fort  where  he  is  confined. 

On  the  whole,  however,  Kipling  presents  us,  in  the  glimpses 
of  himself,  with  material  for  a  sufficiently  flattering  portrait 
— not  the  real  Kipling,  nor  Kipling  as  the  world  saw  him, 
but  Kipling  as  Kipling,  aged  twenty-two,  saw  him.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  club,  he  moves  in  the  best  society ;  he  is  guide, 
philosopher,  and  friend  to  the  best  people  in  his  stories,  to 
Mrs.  Hauksbee,  the  cleverest  woman  in  India ;  to  Strickland, 
who  knew  as  much  of  the  natives  as  the  natives  knew  themselves. 
It  is  natural,  then,  that  when  he  follows  a  different  method  and 
creates  a  narrator  for  his  story,  he,  Kipling,  should  be  the  inti-, 
mate  friend  of  that  narrator,  receive  his  confidences,  and  be  a 
prominent  figure  in  the  situation  which  frames  the  story.    ^ 

These  frame-situations,  often  very  elaborate,  are  particularly 
characteristic  of  the  stories  of  the  Soldiers  Three.  And  they 
are  peculiarly  interesting,  historically,  because  they  carry  on, 
unconsciously  no  doubt,  a  very  old  tradition,  the  tradition 
of  the  oral  tale.  Ballad  and  folk  tale,  lad  and  fabliau,  were 
composed  for  oral  presentation.     Chaucer's   Canterbury  Tales 


KIPLING   THE   8T0B1    WR1T1  S 

w;t-.  Indeed,  composed  rather  for  private  reading  than  for 
public  recitation,  bul  it  dramatized  the  old  situation,  providing 
for  each  tale  a  narrator  and  an  audience.  Chaucer  described 
the  characters  of  narrators  and  audience,  and  motived  the  tales 
in  these  characters,  in  their  relations  to  one  another,  and  in 
their  actions  along  the  road  to  Canterbury.  He  himself  was 
<me  of  them.  Kipling  is  one  of  a  similar  group.  But  the 
oumber  is  reduced  from  thirty  to  four;  Kipling  himself  tells  qo 
• :  and  the  others,  speaking,  oo1  to  a  heterogeneous  company 
brought  together  by  chance,  hut  to  friends,  t.ll  stories  of  their 
own  adventures,  usually  of  an  extremely  intimate  ainl  personal 
nature.  W--  meet  them  first,  in  what  may  be  taken  for  the 
si  Indian  equivalent  for  the  Tabard  Inn — the  (Jmballa  Re 
shment  Room  -waiting,  not  to  go  on  pilgrimage,  bul  for  an 
up-train.      For  Chaucer's 

"Strong  was  the  wyn,  and  wel  to  drink  us  leste  . . ." 
Kipling  has  "]  supplied  the  beer.  The  talc  was  cheap  at  a 
gallon  and  a  half."  And  at  the  beginning  Kipling,  like  Chaucer, 
describes  his  characters:  "Mulvaney,  Ortheris,  and  Learoyd  are 
Privat<  s  in  B  <  lompany  of  a  Line  Regiment,  and  personal  friends 
of  mine.  Collectively  I  think,  but  am  no1  certain,  they  are 
the  worst  nun  in  the  regiment  so  far  as  genial  blackguardism 
s. "  Here,  again,  is  the  personal  note,  in  the  phrase  '"friends 
of  mine,"  inconceivable  in  Chaucer,  who  had.  nevertheless. 
broken  away  from  the  complete  impersonality  of  medieval  Litera- 
ture. Both  authors,  however,  betray  a  Liking  for  Low  company.8 
The  Btory  that  follows  -a  practical  joke  played  on  a  Duke  who 
demanded   a   review  of  the   troops     is  told  by   Mulvaney   and 


/  S       to  Sea  Kipling  Baya  of  himself  that  ' '  m  perverse  liking 

for  low  company  'lr<\\  the  Englishman  .  . .  up  a  side  si 


PLOTS   AM)   THEM   SHi.XIEICASCE  39 

Ortheris  together ;  the  audience  consists  of  Learoyd  and  Kipliug 
with  his  notebook.  Of  the  remaining  soldiers-three  stories,  two 
are  told  by  Learoyd,  the  rest  by  Mulvaney;  and  it  is  not  so 
much    through    the    stories    themselves    as    through    tin-    frame- 

situations  that   the   three   characters   are   revealed.       These   are 

„ 

sometimes  simple  and  brief,  more  often,  highly  and  variously 
elaborated.  Of  the  simpler  type  are  The  Three  Musketeers 
(from  which  1  have  just  quoted),  The  Taking  of  Lungtungpen, 
The  Daught<  r  of  the  Regiment,  and  Private  Learojjd's  Story. 
The  first  three  of  these  are  in  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.  The 
only  other  soldier  story  of  this  collection,  Hie  Madness  of  Private 
Ortheris,  may,  from  the  present  point  of  view,  be  described  as 
an  elaborate  frame-situation  without  the  enclosed  story.  In  it 
Ortheris,  Mulvaney,  and  Kipling  go  shooting;  Ortheris  is  sud- 
denly attacked  by  homesickness,  and  is  cured  at  length  by  being 
made  a  fool  of,  that  is,  being  persuaded  to  change  his  uniform 
for  Kipling's  civilian  dress>  One  might  say,  then,  that  for 
most  of  the  later  stories  Kipling  combines  the  two  methods — an 
elaborate  situation,  as  in  The  Madness  of  Private  Ortheris,  with 
a  story  told  by  a  soldier,  as  in  The  Three  Musketeers,  The 
Taking  of  Lungtungpen,  The  Daughter  of  the  Regiment.  Black 
Jack,  which  might  have  for  subtitle  "the  Madness  of  Private 
Mulvaney,"  would  be  exactly  the  result  of  such  a  combination. 
Here,  as  the  story  opens,  Mulvaney  is  doing  pack  drill,  and  seven 
pages  of  introduction  are  required  to  show  how  his  friends 
persuade  him  to  walk  off  his  anger  and  shame,  before  he  begins 
the  story  proper.  The  rest  of  these  stories  are  all  of  this  more 
elaborate  type  and  involve  a  similar  narrative  or  even  plot 
element,  quite  distinct  from  the  story  they  enclose.  In  The 
(  God  from  the  Machine}  Kipling  finds  his  three  friends  enjoying 


40  KIPLING    THE  STOL'Y    WHITER 

refreshment  begged  or  stolen  from  an  officers'  dance.  The  Solid 
Muldoon  begins  with  a  dog-fight.  The  Big  Drunk  Draf  reveals 
Mulvaney  as  a  civilian,  foreman  of  a  gang  of  coolies,  and  intro- 
duces Dinah  Shadd.  In  With  the  Main  Chuard  Mulvaney  tells 
the  story  of  the  Black  Tyrone  regiment  in  "Silver's  Theatre" 
— perhaps  the  best  fight  in  all  Kipling — to  "blandandher" 
Ortheris  and  Learoyd  through  the  horrors  of  a  hot  night  in 
Fort  Amara.  The  frame  for  Greenhow  II ill,  Learoyd 's  love 
story,  is  a  complete  story  in  itself.  Learoyd  is  inspired  by  the 
resemblance  of  the  bare  sub-Himalayan  spur  to  his  Yorkshire 
moors,  and  by  the  notion  that  the  native  whom  Ortheris  has  come 
out  to  shoot  may  have  deserted  "for  the  sake  of  a  lass."  \Kip- 
ling  was  not  one  of  the  party  that  morning;  but  it  was  he,  and 
lie  alone,  who  heard  Mulvaney  tell  his  love  story — The_Courtiny 
of_J2hiah^  Shadd.  As  special  correspondent  he  had  been  fol- 
lowing all  day  the  fortunes  of  a  pursuing  army  engaged  in  a 
sham  battle,  and  in  the  evening  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
Privates  Mulvaney,  Ortheris,  and  Learoyd.  An  account  of  the 
evening  follows — the  doings  of  officers  and  men,  practical  jokes, 
songs  and  stories,  about  the  camp  fires.  Mulvaney  tells  how  he 
played  Hamlet  in  Dublin,  and,  at  last,  the  story  of  Dinah  Shadd. 
Then,  more  eamp  nonsenseT) 

"When  I  woke  I  saw  Mulvaney,  the  night-dew  gemming  his 
moustache,  leaning  on  his  rifle  at  picket,  lonely  as  Prometheus 
on  his  rock,  with  I  know  not  what  vultures  tearing  his  liver." 

More  complex,  most  complex  of  all,  is  the  relation  of  frame- 
work and  story  in  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney.  The 
two  are  so  intertwined  that  the  story  comes  to  be  told  from  four 
distinct  points  of  view,  with  the  result  that  the  reader  seems  to 
move  along  with  the  action,  to  follow  it  as  one  follows  the  events 


PLOTS  AND  THEIB  SIGNIFICANCE  41 

of  contemporary  history,  day  by  day.  After  Soldiers  Three 
there  came  the  collections  called  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  In 
Black  and  White,  Under  the  Deodars,  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw, 
and  Wee  Willie  Winkie.  In  none  of  these  is  there  a  story  of 
the  three  soldiers.  In  Life's  Handicap,  written  after  Kipling's 
departure  from  India,  he  returns  to  them  with  three  stories,  The 
Incarnation,  The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  and  Greenhow  Hill. 
'The  Incarnation  comes  first ;  and  because  he  had  so  long  neglected 
his  three  friends,  or  because  he  did  not  venture  to  assume  that 
the  English  public,  for  whom  he  now  wrote,  was  familiar  with 
them,  Kipling  began  this  story  with  an  account  of  the  Three 
and  of  his  relations  with  them.  It  is  interesting  to  contrast  this 
relatively  formal  and  elaborate  statement  with  the  two  sentences 
which  introduced  the  Three  Musketeers  for  the  first  time  to  the 
Anglo-Indian  public.  The  point  is  a  significant  one  as  showing 
the  care  of  the  journalist  and  short-story  writer  to  make  himself 
intelligible  to  his  readers.  After  this  formal  introduction  comes 
the  first  scene  of  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney.  Story 
and  framework  are  held  distinct  yet  cleverly  interwoven.  The 
account  of  Mulvaney  \s  incarnation  is,  moreover,  the  best  ex- 
ample, in  the  early  period,  of  Kipling's  mastery  of  the  comic, 
and  demands  discussion  at  this  point,  even  at  the  risk  of  digres- 
sion. It  fulfils  the  short-story  requirement  of  containing  much 
in  little;  it  works  out  all  the  ludicrous  possibilities  of  these  gay 
adventures,  makes  use  of  every  possible  source  of  comic  effect. 
For  character,  Mulvaney  patently  falls  below  the  moral  norm ; 
he  is  a  drunkard  and  a  thief,  willing  to  take  by  force  what  is 
not  his — justifying  his  act  indeed  by  a  kind  of  comic  poetic 
justice:  Dearsley  "has  robbed  the  naygur-man,  dishonust.  We 
rob  him  honust  for  the  sake  of  the  whiskey  he  gave  me" — heed- 


42  KIP1  1  W,    ////    sioi.)    /i  Ull  I  i; 

Less  of  discipline,  a  disobedient  soldier,  careless  of  his  own  good 
name  and  thai  of  the  English  army.  Bu1  he  Is  seen  from  the 
comic  point  of  view.  No  more  Ludicrous  contrasts  are  possible 
than  Mulvaney  in  the  royal  palanquin  his  Legs  wavin'  out  of 
the  windy  .Mulvaney  at  a  Queens'  Praying,  Mulvaney  imper- 
sonating the  Maharanee  of  a  Central  Indian  state,  or  posing  as 
the  god  Krishna.  Be  is  seen,  moreover,  with  the  eye  of  sym- 
pathy father  than  the  eye  of  reason.  Kipling  takes  care  to 
insure  this.  The  colonel  wishes  he  had  a  few  more  like  him — no 
one  knows  so  well  how  to  put  the  polish  (iii  young  soldiers.  And 
the  sergeanl  adds  thai  he  is  worth  a  couple  of  non-commissioned 
officers  with  an  Irish  draft,  and  the  London  lads  adore  him. 
Moreover,  he  wins  our  sympathy  by  a  touch  of  pathos  just  a1 
the  heighl  of  the  comic  situation.  The  queens,  it  appears,  have 
come  to  the  temple  to  pray  for  children.  "That,"  says  .Mul- 
vaney. "That  made  me  more  sorry  I'd  come,  me  bein',  as  you 
well  know,  a  childless  man.*'1  Thanks  to  this  touch  of  pathos, 
and  to  Mulvaney's  many  lovable  qualities,  he  is  a  humorous, 
rather  than  a  merely  comic  figure.  And  on  the  positive  sid<\ 
there  are  .Mulvaney's  wit.  the  wonderful  phrasing  of  Ins  nar- 
rative, his  cleverness,  his  readiness  to  take  advantage  of  every 
situation. 

For  plot,  we  have  here,  as  in  the  best  fabliaux,  intriguer 
pitted  againsl  intriguer.  Dearsley,  deprived  of  his  profitable 
palanquin,  thinks  to  outwit  Mulvaney;  bu1  the  comic  disappoint- 
ments are  all  his.  and  poetic  just  ice  is  done.  Mulvaney  parading 
;i>  the  <jnd  Krishna,  is  a  sham  supernatural  figure  suggestive  of 
the  fabliaux,  or,  more  specifically,  of  Boccaccio's  St.  Michael  in 
the  Decameron.      And  there  is.  finally,  the   fabliau  delight  in 


4  See  The  Courting  <>f  Dinah  Shadd  for  the  account  of  the  child's  death. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  43 

pain  as  a  source  of  comic  effect — the  rough  handling  of  Dearsley, 
and  Mulvaney's  seizing  some  ten  or  fifty  of  the  coolies  and 
knocking  their  heads  together.  Kipling  does  not  here,  as  he 
does  sometimes,  go  to  the  length  of  death.  There  is  nothing  like 
the  passage  in  The  Taking  of  Lungtungpcn,  where  "they  ran 
...  an'  we  wint  into  thim,  baynit  an'  butt,  shriekin'  wid  laughin'. 
We  counted  seventy-five  dead.'X;  Some  of  Kipling's  critics  have 
been  troubled  by  a  peculiar  hardness  or  lightness  in  dealing 
with  serious  matters;  perhaps  it  can  be  accounted  for  on  the 
ground  of  fabliau  tradition  persisting  down  through  the  cen- 
turies in  the.  essentially  fabliau  characters  whom  he  depicts. 

This  method  of  narration — through  the  mouth  of  a  narrator 
created  for  the  purpose — is  not  confined  to  the  Soldiers  Three 
group.  There  are  other  story-tellers,  like  Hans  Breitman,  the 
far-travelled  German  naturalist,  who  tells,  in  German  dialect, 
the  tales  of  Reingelder  and  the  German  Flag  and  Bert  ran  and 
Bimi.  These  and  Of  Those  Called,  The  Wreck  of  the  Visigoth, 
and  The  Lang  Men  o'  Larut  are  told  at  sea.  The  Gate  of  a 
Hundred  Sorrows  is  the  monologue  of  an  opium-eater,  with  a 
curiously  well-held,  monotonous,  and  whining  style.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  early  stories. 

In  certain  other  monologues — Dray  Wara  Yow  Dee,  At  Hoivli 
Thana  and  In  Flood  Time,  Kipling's  questions  are  implied;  we 
feel  his  presence  as  ^interlocutor? throughout.  These  tales  are, 
therefore,  to  be  regarded  as  Dramatic  Monologues,  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  Browning. 

But  none  of  these  other  framed  tales  are  as  effective  as  those 
of  the  Soldiers  Three.  For  none  are  so  highly  personalized; 
in  none  are  the  narrators  so  interesting,  and  in  none  does  Kip- 
ling make  his  own  presence  so  distinctly  felt.     For  this  intrusion 


44  KIPLING   THE  8T0B1    WBJTEB 

of  the  author  into  his  own  work  is  not  to  be  regarded,  with 
Kipling,  as  a  defect.  In  spite  of  his  youthful  eagerness  for 
flattering  self-portraiture,  lie  never  seems  to  stand  between 
the  reader  and  the  story.  He  never  has  the  manner  of  Boccaccio 
or  of  Addison,  who  seem  to  be  visibly  manufacturing  their 
stories,  or  worse,  summarizing  in  cool,  correct,  and  elegant 
fashion  the  stories  of  others.  Kipling,  on  the  contrary,  seems 
tn  be  dealing  with  matters  of  fact:  lie  was  present  when  the 
thing  happened;  or  he  himself  played  an  active  part;  or  the 
story  was  told  to  him  on  a  definite  occasion,  under  conditions 
involving  a  certain  emotional  stress;  in  hearing  he  suffered  that 
emotion,  he  had  something  more  than  the  receptivity  of  a  phono- 
graph making  a  record  ;  he  was  never  a  mere  mechanical  recorder 
of  another's  words.  And  though,  on  the  other  hand,  his  stories 
are  never  studies  in  introspective  psychology,  yet  in  many  of 
them  the  reader  can  follow  rather  closely  Kipling's  own  "line 
of  emotion.**  particularly  when  that  emotion  happens  to  be  fear, 
as  in  Tht  R<  turn  of  Imray  or  The  Mark  of  the  Beast,  or  sorrow, 
as  in  Thrown  Away  or  Th<  Story  of  Muhammad  Din.  Kipling's 
own  emotion,  however,  is  mainly  evident  as  sympathy  with  the 
persons  of  his  stories.  No  reader  can  fail  to  share  his  astonish- 
ment, his  amusement,  his  anxiety,  his  sorrow,  as  Kipling  listens 
to  -Muhaney.  or  as  he  tells  such  stories  as  The  Madness  of  Private 
Ortheris,  Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office,  or  Nanigay  Doola. 
And  this  sympathy  with  hero  or  heroine  is  no  less  evident  in 
many  of  the  stories  told  in  the  third  person,  where  neither  a 
narrator  nor  Kipling  himself  openly  intervenes.  That  Kip- 
ling takes  sides  with  Lispeth  against  the  missionaries  is  evident 
enough,  in  spite  of  the  briskly  impersonal  and  somewhat  Mau- 
passantian  manner.       lie  sides  continually  with  the  commonly 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  45 

misunderstood — with  the  natives,  in  The  Judgment  of  Dungara; 
with  the  British  soldier,  in  In  the  Matter  of  a  Private;  with  the 
civilian  officials,  in  At  the  End  of  the  Passage;  with  the  people 
of  doubtful  reputation  as  against  the  respectable  hypocrites,  as 
in  Watches  of  the  Night  and  A  Bank  Fraud,  and  with  children, 
as  in  Baa  Baa  Black  Sheep  and  His  Majesty  the  King.  In  gen- 
eral, he  takes  sides  with  his  hero ;  for  while  that  commonplace 
of  criticism,  which  would  make  Kipling's  heroes  always  Kipling 
himself,  must  be  regarded  as  an  exaggeration,  still  it  is  true  that 
there  are  many  projections  of  himself,  as  child  or  man,  in  his 
stories ;  so  that  these,  too,  have  the  vividness  and  immediacy 
of  effect  of  highly  personalized  narrative.  And  even  stories  told, 
like  so  many  of  those  in  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills,  to  prove  a 
point  in  morals  or  to  establish  some  phase  of  human  character, 
even  these  exempla,  have  much  of  the  same  quality.  This  is 
due  not  merely  to  an  autobiographical  quality,  as  in  Baa  Baa  ~~ 
Black  Sheep — which  proves  that  small  boys  are  not  as  black 
as  they  are  painted ;  it  is  due  not  merely  to  his  taking  sides, 
as  in  Lispeth;  it  is  due  also  to  the  fact  that  the  story,  though 
merely  illustrative,  is  mainly  significant  for  a  phase  of  life  in 
which  he  is  himself  an  active  participant.  Thus  even  The  Con- 
version of  Aurelian  McGoggin,  though  Kipling  styles  it  a  tract, 
has  none  of  the  dullness,  the  painfully  manifest  didactic  inten- 
tion of  that  wearisome  literary  kind.  Though  Kipling  endows 
McGoggin  with  his  own  grandfathers,  the  two  Methodist 
preachers,  yet  McGoggin  is  not  Kipling,  and  Kipling  sides 
against  him.  The  story  interests,  rather,  because  it  has  all  the 
external  realities,  and  because  Kipling  thoroughly  believes  it. 
Here,  perhaps,  is  the  secret  of  the  effectiveness  of  personal  narra- 
tive :  Kipling  believes  his  own  stories ;  consequently,  as  he  writesp^ 


46  KIPLIXC   Till:   STUl.'Y    WRITER 

In'  shares  the  emotions  of  his  characters:  hie  grieves  with  them, 
laughs  with  them;  he  shares  their  anxiety,  their  dread,  their 
fear,  their  wrath,  their  sense  <>l'  triumph.  [nevitably  we  too 
believe  ;  we  too  suffer  their  emol  ions. 

There  are  other  ways  of  being  effective.  There  is  the  im- 
personal way,  the  way  of  Shakespeare  and  the  great  dramatists, 
who  create  characters  of  surpassing  reality,  ye1  quite  distinct 
from  themselves,  and  sel  them  before  us  by  means  of  dialogue 

alone,  without  com 1  it  or  explanation.      Kipling's  experimenl 

in  this  way  is  an  interesting  study.  The  Gadsbys  is  not  drama: 
it  could  not  be  acted;  but  it  is  wholly  dialogue — dialogue  which 
contrives  to  imply  character,  emotion,  and  resulting  situations 
of  great  moment.  There  are  eight  parts.  In  Poor  Dear 
Mainiiiti,  Captain  Gadsby,  who  has  been  attentive  to  Mrs.  Three- 
gan,  meets  Minnie  Threegan,  her  daughter,  and  after  an  interval 
of  five  weeks  is  engaged  to  her.  In  The  World  Without ,  men  at 
the  club,  in  a  desultory  and  realistic  conversation  full  of  simp. 
discuss  the  engagement.  It  appears  that  Captain  Gadsby  is 
rich,  and  it  is  predicted  that  he  will  retire  when  he  marries. 
But  he  is  likely  to  have  difficulty  in  breaking  with  Mrs.  Herriott. 
'l'h'  Tints  of  Kedar  is  a  dinner-party.  Captain  Gadsby  is 
seated  next  to  Mrs.  Berriott.  "How  on  earth" —says  he,  aside 
— "am  I  to  tell  her  that  I  am  a  respectable,  engaged  member 
of  society  and  it's  all  over  between  us.'"  However,  he  man- 
ages  to  do  it.  In  With  Ami  Amazement,  the  wedding  is 
solemnized.  Thi  Garden  of  Eden  is  the  honeymoon  and  first 
exchange  of  confidences.  "Never,"  says  Mrs.  Gadsby,  "never, 
m  i-i  r  tell  your  wife  anything  that  you  do  not  wish  her  to  re- 
member  and  think  over  all  her  life.  Because  a  woman  .  .  .  can't 
forget.  .  .  .  And   1   shall  want  to  know  every  one  of  your  secrets 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  47 

— to  share  everything  you  know  with  you.  .  .  .  You  must  not 
tell  me!"  In  Fatima,  wife  and  work  come  into  conflict.  Mrs. 
Gadsby,  moreover,  reads  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Herriott,  and  there 
follows  a  falling  out  and  a  making  up,  with  tears.  In  The 
Valley  of  the  Shadow)  a  scene  of  moving  pathos,  Gadsby  says 
"good-bye"  to  his  dying  wife.  However,  she  recovers,  and 
in  Th(  Swelling  of  Jordan,  Gadsby  has  decided  to  give  up  the 
service  for  her  sake.  "Jack,"  he  says  to  his  friend  Captain 
Mafflin,  "be  very  sure  of  yourself  before  you  marry.  I'm  an 
ungrateful  ruffian  to  say  this,  but  marriage — even  as  good  a 
marriage  as  mine  has  been — hampers  a  man's  work,  it  cripples 
his  sword-arm,  and  oh,  it  plays  Hell  with  his  notions  of  duty!" 
Gadsby  has  lost  his  nerve.  "Wait  till  you've  got  a  wife  and  a 
3'oungster  of  your  own,  and  then  you'll  know  how  the  roar  of 
the  squadron  behind  you  turns  you  cold  all  up  the  back.  ...  I  'm 
talking  like  a  cur,  I  know :  but  I  tell  you  that,  for  the  past  three 
months,  I've  felt  every  hoof  of  the  squadron  in  the  small  of 
my  back  every  time  that  I've  led." 

Had  Kipling  been  reading  Virginibiis  Pucrisque?  "In  mar- 
riage," wrote  Stevenson  at  twenty-five,  "a  man  becomes  slack 
and  selfish,  and  undergoes  a  fatty  degeneration  of  his  moral 
being.  .  .  .  The  air  of  the  fireside  withers  out  all  the  fine  wildings 
of  the  husband's  heart.  He  is  so  comfortable  and  happy  that 
he  begins  to  prefer  comfort  and  happiness  to  everything  else  on 
earth,  his  wife  included.  Yesterday  he  would  have  shared  his 
last  shilling;  to-day  'his  first  duty  is  to  his  family,'  and  is 
fulfilled  in  large  measure  by  laying  down  vintages  and  husband- 
ing the  health  of  an  invaluable  parent.  Twenty  years  ago  this 
man  was  equally  capable  of  crime  or  heroism ;  now  he  is  fit  for 
neither.      His  soul  is  asleep,  and  you  may  speak  without  con- 


48  hiri.isi;  rui:  sroin    writer 

straintj  you  will  qo1  wake  him."  Had  Kipling  been  reading 
Virgimbus  Puerisquef  Or  had  he,  born  fifteen  years  after 
Stevenson,  merely  reached  the  same  stage  in  his  development, 
the  age  when,  like  Will  Honeycomb,  a  young  man  rails  at  matri- 
mony " to  show  his  parts"? 

As  an  experiment  in  the  development  of  plot  and  character 
by  means  of  dialogue  TJit  Gad  shy's  is  not  wholly  successful.5 
Kipling  does  no1  play  the  game  strictly  according  to  rule.  That 
is  to  say.  if  he  docs  not  himself  utter  comment  or  explanation, 
he  calls  in  characters  to  do  so.  Thus  the  men  at  the  club — the 
■"world  without" — talk  their  shop  naturally  enough,  yet  talk 
obviously  for  the  purpose  of  expounding  Gadsby  and  his  sit- 
uation. The  story  is  not  completely  self-revealing;  it  transpires 
in  part  through  the  comments  of  others.  Kipling,  again,  makes 
free  use  of  the  sta^e  direction  to  indicate  mental  state:  "Captain 
G.  (insoli  ntly)  ";  Mrs.  II.  (drawiny  herself  up)  ;  Mrs.  H.  (soft- 
i  ning)  ;  Mrs.  II.  (fiercely)  ;  Capt.  G.  (feebly)  ;  and  so  on.  As 
if  Shakespeare  had  written:  "Hamlet  (sadly),  "To  be  or  not 
to  be?"  One  sees  at  once  how  the  speeches  of  a  real  dramatist 
carry  their  own  emotional  implications.  And  Kipling,  finally, 
makes  reckless  use  of  the  aside.  When  Captain  Gadsby  meets 
Minnie  Threegan : 

Capt.  G.     Do  you  ride  much  then?      I've  never  seen  you  on  the  Mall. 

Miss  T.  (Aside)  I  haven't  passed  him  more  than  fifty  times.  (Aloud) 
Nearly  every  day. 

Capt.  G.  By  Jove!  I  didn't  know  that.  Ha-Hmmm.  (Pulls  at  his 
moustacJu   and  is  silent  for  forty  seconds.) 


s  Sec,  however,  Barrie's  praise — significant  from  a  fellow-craftsman — 
of  Kipling's  nvclation  of  character  by  dialogue  in  The  Gadsby  s.  He  does 
succeed,  though,  as  I  say,  not  by  purely  dramatic  means.  It  is  interesting 
to  knew  that  he  had  had  some  experience  in  acting.  And  he  has  recently 
produced  a  play. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  49 

Miss  T.  {Desperately,  and  wondering  what  will  happen  next)  It  looks 
beautiful.  I  shouldn't  touch  it  if  I  were  you.  (Aside)  It's  all  Mamma's 
fault  for  not  coming  before.      I  will  be  rude! 

A  raore  thoroughgoing  experiment  in  this  way,  though  on  a 
smaller  scale,  is  The  Hill  of  Illusion.  There  are  only  two 
speakers,  He  and  She.  There  are  no  comments,  no  explanations 
by  others,  no  stage  directions,  and  no  asides.  The  conversation 
reveals  the  situation  and  at  the  same  time  changes  it.     She  says : 

Do  you  mean  that  still?  I  didn't  dare  to  write  to  you  about  it — all  these 
months. 

He.  Mean  it!  I've  been  shaping  my  affairs  to  that  end  since  Autumn. 
What  makes  you  speak  as  though  it  had  occurred  to  you  for  the  first  time? 

She.     I?     Oh!     I  don't  know.      I've  had  long  enough  to  think,  too. 

He.     And  you've  changed  your  mind? 

She.  No.  You  ought  to  know  that  I  am  a  miracle  of  constancy. 
What  are  your — arrangements  ?  . .  . 

He.  The  arrangements  are  simple  enough.  Tonga  in  the  early  morn- 
ing— reach  Kalka  at  twelve — Umballa  at  seven — down,  straight  by  night 
train,  to  Bombay,  and  then  the  steamer  of  the  twenty-first  for  Rome. 
That's  my  idea.      The  Continent  and  Sweden — a  ten-week  honeymoon. 

So  it  begins.  But  She  thinks  of  the  scandal,  of  her  brother 
and  mother;  She  cannot  trust  Him. 

It  can't  last,  Guy.  It  can't  last.  You'll  get  angry,  and  then  you'll 
swear,  and  then  you'll  get  jealous,  and  then  you'll  mistrust  me — you  do 
now — and  you  yourself  will  be  the  best  reason  for  doubting.  And  I — ■ 
what  shall  7  do?  I  shall  be  no  better  than  Mrs.  Buzgago  found  out — no 
better  than  any  one.      And  you'll  know  that.      Oh,  Guy,  can't  you  see? 

He.  I  see  that  you  are  desperately  unreasonable,  little  woman.  .  .  .  May 
I  call  to-morrow?  . . . 

She.     Ye-es.      Good-night,  Guy.      Don't  be  angry  with  me. 

He.  Angry!  You  know  I  trust  you  absolutely.  Good-night  and — God 
bless  you! 

(Three  seconds  later.  Alone)  Hmm!  I'd  give  something  to  discover 
whether  there's  another  man  at  the  back  of  all  this. 


X 


50  KIPLING   THK  STORY    117,77/./,' 

The  peculiar  vividness,  the  air  of  reality  of  Kipling's  stories 
is  then,  due  in  part  fee  the  peculiarities  of  external  structure.6 
It  is  due  to  the  personalized  quality  of  the  narrative;  it  is  due 
mi  the  other  hand,  in  other  stories,  to  just  the  opposite  quality, 
to  the  dramatic  impersonality.  We  are  permitted  to  overhear 
the  natural  Conversation  of  the  characters,  and,  as  in  Tht  Gads- 
bys  or  Tht  Hill  of  Illusion,  we  are  permitted  in  large  measure 
to  draw  our  own  conclusions.  Yet  another  trick  of  external 
structure  contributes  to  the  impression  of  reality.  This  is  the 
reeurrenee  of  the  same  persons  in  numerous  stories.  By  the  time 
that  we  have  semi  Mulvaney  in  half  a  dozen  different  moods, 
under  different  circumstances.  engaged  in  different  adventures 
grave  or  gay,  we  come  to  have  a  feeling  of  the  complexity  of 
his  character,  we  think  of  him  as  an  old  friend.  Subconsciously 
we  apply  the  test  of  reality:  we  conceive  of  him  as  cause  and  as 
effect,  we  can  predict  of  him  as  accurately  as  of  our  friends  what 
he  will  do  under  all  circumstances.  And  this  is  true,  though  in 
less  degree,  of  Learoyd  and  Ortheris,  of  Mrs.  Hauksbee  and 
Mrs.  Reiver,  as  well.  Particularly  telling  is  Kipling's  manifest 
foreknowledge  of  the  lives  of  these  persons.  From  the  first  he 
seems  to  know  all  about  them,  to  have  in  mind  not  only  all  the 
stories  that  he  is  going  to  tell  hut  also  many  others  which  he 
does  not  choose  to  tell.  On  Mrs.  Hauksbee 's  first  appearance 
it  is  said  that  "she  could  be  idee  even  to  her  own  sex.  But 
that  is  another  story."  The  other  story  is  The  Rescue  of  Pluffles. 
In  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney,  .Mulvaney  refers  to 
his  childlessness,  [in  Tht  Courtmg  of  Dinah  SJi<t<]<I  is  told  the 
story  of  his  child's  death.      And  so  on — -it  is  not  necessary  to 


6  One  more  method  of  presentation  must  be  added  for  completeness,  the 
journal  written  by  the  protagonist,  found  in  two  stories  only,  The  Phantom 
'Rickshaw  and  The  Dream  of  Duncan   Parrenness. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  51 

multiply  instances^)  The  effect  of  this  grasp  of  a  whole  group 
of  stories  is  like  that  of  the  grasp  of  the  whole  plot  of  a  novel; 
it  is  unifying ;  it  weaves  the  web  more  closely ;  it  makes  action 
as  well  as  character  seem  more  like  a  transcript  of  life.7 

Kipling's  power  of  making  us  see  what  he  sees  is  due  in 
part,  then,  to  what  is  called  external  structure.  It  is  due  in 
part,  also,  to  internal  structure.  By  internal  structure  I  mean, 
practically,  Plot,  Design — the  architecture  of  the  story,  the 
plan  of  the  whole,  its  division  into  parts,  the  material  of  which 
these  parts  are  constructed.  In  general,  one  does  not  get  the 
impression  that  Kipling  gave  very  much  thought  to  these  mat- 
ters. One  does  not  get  the  impression  that  he  planned  his  stories 
carefully  from  beginning  to  end,  as  Poe  and  Stevenson  did. 
He  worked  rather,  one  would  imagine,  instinctively,  spontan- 
eously; in  a  sense,  artlessly;  with  a  strong  feeling  about  the 
story  in  hand  rather  than  a  definite  plan  as  to  its  form.  If 
he  had  a  principle  in  mind,  I  judge  that  it  must  have  been  that 
of  naturalness.  I  judge  that  he  wished  to  avoid  anything  that 
might  look  like  affectation,  like  artificiality,  anything,  in  the 
early  stories  at  least,  which  should  look  very  different  from 
the  other  columns  of  the  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  or  The 
Pioneer.  Probably  the  same  impulse  which  held  him  down  to 
the  commonplace,  to  the  prosaic,  in  stories  which  may  now  seem 
to  us  to  demand  a  higher  style,  held  him  down  to  an  approxima- 
tion of  the  structure  of  the  informal,  oral  "good  story"  of  our 
own  day — the  after-dinner  story — in  the  architecture  of  his 
tales. 

It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  in  mind  a  definition  of  the 


"'  The  recurrence  of  places  lias  the  same  effect :  Simla  is  the  scene  of 
many  of  the  tales  of  Anglo-Indian  society ;  Fort  Amara,  of  With  the  Main 
Guard  and  On  the  City  Wall. 


52  KIPLING  THE  8T0BY   WHITER 

Short-Story,  that  he  was  conscious  of  the  demand  of  brevity 
upon  plot,  or  the  demand  of  all-around  elaboration.  Thus,  if 
one  were  to  make  a  table  of  Kipling's  stories,  like  Professor 
Baldwin's  table  of  Boccaccio's,  classifying  them  as  Anecdotes, 
Condensed  Long-Stories,  and  Short-Stories,  one  would  probably 
find  that  something  like  one-halt'  were  mere  anecdotes,  that 
something  like  one-fifth  were  condensed  long-stories,  and  that 
only  the  remaining  one-third  were  true  short-stories.  These 
results,  of  course,  are  my  own.  No  other  critic  would  agree 
with  them.  And  I  am  often  in  doubt  as  to  my  own  classification. 
I  place  Tin  Man  Who  Would  Be  King  among  the  short-stories, 
but  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  it  belongs  their.  For  it  is  a 
kind  of  epic  in  little;  it  covers  wider  space  and  time  and  con- 
tains larger  adventures  than  On  Greenhow  Hill.  Yet  it  seems 
to  me  a  more  nearly  typical  short-story,  for  in  it  the  essential 
thing  is  the  scene  in  which  Kipling  takes  part.  It  is  less  the 
story  of  the  Man  Who  Would  Be  King  than  Kipling's  story  of 
that  story.  There  must  be  doubt,  then.  However,  I  believe 
that,  roughly  speaking,  my  classification  is  correct  enough,  and 
that  there  would  be  general  agreement  as  to  the  results. 

The  large  number  of  anecdotes  is  not  surprising.  It  is  due 
in  part,  doubtless,  to  the  conditions  under  which  Kipling  wrote. 
He  has  given  an  amusing  account  of  the  publication,  in  The 
Civil  and  Military  Gazette,  of  his  early  verse:  "Nothing  can  be 
wholly  beautiful  that  is  not  useful,  and  therefore  my  verses  were 
made  to  ease  off  the  perpetual  strife  between  the  manager  extend- 
ing his  advertisements  and  my  chief  fighting  for  his  reading- 
matter.  They  were  born  to  be  sacrificed.  Rukn-Din,  the  fore- 
man of  our  side,  approved  of  them  immensely,  for  he  was  a 
Muslim  of  culture.      He  would  say:  'Your  potery  very  good, 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  53 

sir;  just  coming  proper  length  to-day.  You  giving  more  soon? 
One-third  column  just  proper.  Always  can  take  on  third  page. ' 
Under  similar  conditions  were  the  early  stories  published.  ' '  Evi- 
dently," says  Mr.  Le  Gallienne,  "journalistic  conditions  kept 
[the  Plain  Tales)  down  to  an  average  of  some  two  thousand 
words  apiece;  and  that  insistence  on  a  comprehensive  brevity 
is  always  something  to  the  credit  of  journalism  as  a  literary 
training.  'In  every  poem,  train  the  leading  shoot,  break  off 
the  suckers,'  runs  a  dictum  of  Landor's.  There  is  nothing  like 
journalism  for  breaking  off  the  suckers,  and  as  Mr.  Kipling's 
style  is  essentially  a  journalistic  one,  journalism  at  its  highest 
power,  the  journalism  of  a  man  of  genius,  journalism  vitalized 
by  an  imagination  which  usually  reserves  itself  for  higher  forms 
of  prose,  this  reference  to  The  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  ...  is 
not  without  its  significance."  Doubtless,  moreover,  the  stories, 
like  the  verses,  were  written  in  haste,  and  under  pressure,  as 
a  diversion  and  as  an  escape  from  the  toil  of  the  subeditor — 
whose  business  was  to  subedit.  Consequently  there  would  be, 
ordinarily,  no  time  for  careful  plotting,  for  the  thoughtful 
elaboration  of  the  various  elements  of  the  narrative,  for  the 
recasting  or  remolding  of  the  material.  These  processes, 
too,  could  only  have  been  repugnant  to  a  man,  and  particularly 
to  a  young  man,  of  Kipling 's  temperament.  X  His  strength  lay 
— and  lies — less  in  intellect,  than  in  imagination  and  memory. 
Reflection,  meditation,  deliberate  contemplation  and  painstaking 
elaboration  of  material  were  not  in  his  way.  He  had  neither 
time,  nor,  I  should  judge,  inclination  for  them.  We  have 
already  seen,  for  example,  how  light  is  his  touch  oii  character, 
creating  not  the  individual  but  the  type;  and  how  little  he 
ordinarily  makes,  in  his  stories  of  mystery  and  terror,  of  the 


54  KIPLING  THE  STOBJ?    WRITER 

accessories  of  time  and  place  and  of  the  emotions  of  the  persons 
concerned.  Because,  then,  of  the  oecessity  of  brevity,  of  the 
inevitable  rapidity  of  composition,  and  because  of  Kipling's  own 
temperament,  the  tendency  to  write  anecdotes  was  strong  with 
him. 

Anecdote  differs  from  short-story  by  virtue  of  lack  of  elab- 
oration. Some  of  Kipling's  anecdotes,  however,  are  incapable 
of  elaboration;  no  increase  of  length,  do  leisure  or  propensity 
For  cogitation  could  make  of  them  short-stories.  Of  such  quality 
is,  for  example.  Tin  Lain/  M(ii  o'  Larut.  It  is  ihe  story  of  an 
American,  Esdras  B.  [jdnger,  who,  having  his  name  in  mind, 
bet  that  he  was  the  longest  man  on  the  Island.  But  he  was  so 
impressed  by  the  height  of  the  three  men  who  were  produced 
to  overtop  him  that  he  owned  himself  beaten.  Such  a  tale, 
manifestly,  is  too  essentially  brief,  too  slight,  too  insignificant, 
to  be  or  to  become  anything  but  anecdote.  But  it  is  the 
anecdote  of  genius.  It  fulfils  admirably  the  conditions  of 
the  so-called  "funny  story"— the  comic  tale,  told  by  word  of 
month,  which  must  be  immediately  effective  on  a  single  hearing, 
must  lead  up  to  the  point  so  that  the  point,  when  it  comes,  may 
be  unmistakable,  must  finish  with  the  point,  must  not  omit  the 
point.  Kipling's  anecdote  is  indeed  to  be  regarded,  historically 
and  technically,  as  an  elaboration,  as  a  development  of  the 
"funny  story.'*  And,  by  his  own  account,  it  appears  that  in 
general  the  oral  tale,  serious  or  comic,  must  have  had  an  influ- 
ence on  his  art.  In  the  interesting  preface  to  Life's  Handicap 
he  wrote:  "These  tales  have  been  collected  from  all  places,  and 
all  sorts  of  people,  from  priests  in  the  Chubara,  from  Ala  Yar 
the  carver,  Jiwun  Singh  the  carpenter,  nameless  men  on  steamers 
and  trains  round  the  world,  women  spinning  outside  their  cot- 


PLOTS  AND  TEEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  55 

tages  in  the  twilight,  officers  and  gentlemen  now  dead  and  buried, 
and  a  few,  but  these  are  the  very  best,  my  father  gave  me." 
Thus  history  repeats  itself.  The  tale  was  conditioned  by  oral 
presentation  in  the  time  before  Chaucer ;  the  curious  may  follow 
the  influence  of  the  literary  folk  tale — based  always  on  the  true, 
oral  folk  tale — from  Boccaccio  to  Poe ;  Bret  Harte  regarded  the 
American  short-story  as  a  development  of  the  oral  and  journal- 
istic "good-story";  and  Maupassant  developed  his  gift  in  part 
by  hearing  and  telling  such  tales.  And  we  have  seen  how 
Kipling,  like  Chaucer,  dramatized  the  old  situation  of  the  oral 
presentation  of  a  tale,  creating  such  characters  as  Mulvaney  and 
his  friends,  not  merely  as  actors  within  the  stories,  but  as  nar- 
rators, and  as  audience  for  the  telling.  In  Kipling's  anecdotes 
we  are  made  aware  once  more  of  the  ever-recurring  debt  of  the 
short-story  to  the  technique  of  the  oral  tale. 

Tin  hang  Men  o'  Larut  is  typical  of  a  class  of  tales  which 
are  essentially  anecdotes.  Another  group  are  essentially  short- 
stories,  and  remain  anecdotes  because  of  lack  of  elaboration,  of 
failure  to  work  out  what  is  really  there.  Typical  of  this  class 
is  Little  Tobrah.  "It  was  true  that  the  dead  body  of  Little 
Tobrah's  sister  had  been  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  well,  and 
Little  Tobrah  was  the  only  human  being  within  a  half-mile 
radius  at  the  time ;  but  the  child  might  have  fallen  in  by 
accident.  Therefore  Little  Tobrah  was  acquitted."  An  Eng- 
lishman, who  saw  him  hungrily  eating  the  grain  that  a  horse 
had  left  in  his  nose-bag,  pitied  him  and  took  him  home.  Little 
Tobrah  told  his  story  to  the  groom  and  his  wife — how  smallpox 
had  slain  his  father  and  mother  and  destroyed  his  little  sister's 
sight,  how  his  elder  brother  had  run  away  with  the  little  money 
they  had,  and  how,  when  he  and  his  sister  begged  food  in  the 


hin.isi;  Tin:  sioi;)    whiter 

village,  there  was  none  to  give,  for  there  was  a  famine  in  the 
land. 

••And  upon  a  hoi  night,  she  weeping  and  calling  for  food,  we  came  to  a 
well,  and  I  bade  her  ail  upon  the  kerb,  and  thrust  her  in,  for,  in  truth, 
sin-  could  not  seej  and  it  is  better  to  die  than  to  starve. ...  I  would  have 
thrown  myseli  in  also,  but  thai  Bhe  was  no1  dead  and  called  to  me  from 
the  bottom  of  the  well,  and  I  was  afraid  and  ran.  .  .  .  But  there  were  no 
witnesses,  and  it  is  better  to  die  than  to  starve.  She,  furthermore,  could 
not  s<c  with  her  eyes,  and  was  but  a  little  child." 

"Was  l>ut  a  little  child,"  echoed  the  Head  Groom's  wife.  "But  who 
art  thou,  weak  as  a  fowl  and  small  as  a  day-old  colt,  what  art  thou?" 

"I  who  was  empty  am  now  full,"  said  Little  Tobrali,  stretching  him- 
self upon  the  dust.     ' '  And  I  would  sleep. ' ' 

The  groom's  wife  spread  a  cloth  over  him  while  Little  Tobrah  slept 
the  sleep  of  the  just. 

The  sudden  revelation  of  childish  cynicism — or  is  it  the 
pathos  of  childish  hopelessness? — at  the  close,  is  worthy  of 
Maupassant.  And  Little  Tobrah 's  story  has  something  of  Mau- 
passant's  matter-of-fact  manner  of  dealing  with  heart-rending 
facts.  Of  a  roughly  similar  theme,  a  dog  that  slowly  starves 
to  death  at  the  bottom  of  a  pit  calling  his  penurious  mistress, 
.Maupassant  made  a  full  length  short-story.  And  the  notion  of 
a  sister  given  up  as  dead,  calling  her  terrified  brother  from  the 
depths,  is  the  central  idea  of  the  plot  of  the  Fall  of  the  House 
of  Usher.  It  is  easy  to  see,  then,  how  Kipling  might  have  made 
of  this  anecdote  of  Littli  Tobrah,  had  he  chosen  to  do  so,  a  short- 
story,  simply  by  elaborating  the  elements  of  the  narrative.  Just 
how  much  elaboration  is  necessary  it  is  impossible  to  say;  the 
difference  between  anecdote  and  short-story,  when  the  anecdote 
is  capable  of  elaboration,  is  a  difference  in  degree,  not  in  kind. 
The  line  has  always  to  be  drawn  arbitrarily,  and  general  agree- 
ment is  impossible. 


PLOTS  AND  TEEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  57 

Kipling's  early  stories,  then,  reveal  the  tendency  to  write 
anecdote.  They  reveal  also  the  tendency  to  write  condensed 
long-story;  but  this  is  much  less  pronounced.  In  the  condensed 
long-story,  the  idea,  the  motif,  is  not  suitable  for  short-story 
treatment.  It  may  require  for  its  elaboration  time  too  ex- 
tended, places  too  numerous,  a  social  group  too  large  or  too 
complex,  the  development  of  a  character,  a  plot  with  too  many 
essential  episodes.  Here  again,  manifestly,  the  distinction  is 
an  arbitrary  one.  Just  how  much  time,  how  many  places  and 
persons — and  so  on — -are  permissible  in  the  short-story,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  However,  when  so  much  is  attempted  that 
the  story  has  to  be  wholly  in  the  form  of  summary,  of  narrative 
in  general  terms,  then,  it  would  be  generally  agreed,  we 
have  condensed  long-story.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  story 
in  all  its  elements  is  suggested  by  means  of  a  single,  highly  elab- 
orated scene,  then,  it  would  be  generally  agreed,  we  have  typical 
short-storv.  These  are  the  extremes ;  somewhere  or  other  be- 
tween  them  one  has  to  draw  the  arbitrary  line.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  in  Kipling  a  story  consisting  wholly  of  summary ; 
it  would  be  difficult,  also,  to^flti.  one  altogether  free  from  it. 
For  it  is  natural  that  a  man T>f  Kipling's  vividness  of  memory, 
of  his  keen  sense  of  fact,  should  make  free  use  of  concrete  inci- 
dent.  And  it  is  no  less  natural  that  a  man  who  composes  brief 
narrative  rapidly,  a  man  of  impetuous  imagination,  should  make 
free  use  of  summary,  should  deal,  as  we  say,  "in  summary 
fashion,"  with  the  events  of  that  narrative.  If  style  is  any 
indication  of  character,  the  young  journalist  was  not  without 
a  certain  impatience  of  disposition ;  he  would  feel  that  his  own 
time  was  too  limited,  as  well  as  that  the  columns  of  his  paper 
offered  too  little  space,  for  the  slow  and  painstaking  elaboration 


KIPLING   THE  8T0BY   WRITER 

of  single  scenes,  for  the  ingenious  translation  into  narrative 
terms,  into  incidenl  and  dialogue,  of  all  thai  he  wished  to  convey 
in  regard  to  the  time,  the  place,  the  social  group,  the  characters, 
the  story  as  a  whole,  and  its  moral  significance.  For  whatever 
cause,  his  tendency  is  rather  to  catch  the  nearer  way,  which  was, 
also,  the  more  natural  wav.  and  come  oul  frankly  with  his  rapid 
generalizations.  (_Thus  in  Lisp<th:  Lispeth.  when  she  found  that 
the  chaplain's  wife  had  lied  to  her  and  that  the  Englishman  had 
no  intent  ion  of  returning  to  marry  her,  "took  to  her  own  unclean 
people  savagely,  as  if  to  make  np  the  arrears  of  the  Life  she  had 
stepped  out  of;  and,  in  a  little  time  she  married  a  woodcutter 
who  heat  her  after  the  manner  of  paharis,  and  her  beauty  faded 
soon...  .  Lispeth  was  a  wry  old  woman  when  she  died."  There 
is  so  much  summary  of  this  sort,  and  what  concrete  events  there 
are,  an'  so  lightly  touched,  so  swiftly  passed  over,  that  Lispeth 
must.  I  think,  he  regarded  as  a  condensed  long-story.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  Lispeth  attempts  two  things  that  are  practically 
impossible  for  the  short-story:  it  attempts  a  complete  biography 
of  the  chief  character — Lispeth 's  birth,  the  (hath  of  her  parents. 
her  upbringing  by  the  chaplain's  wife,  her  general  way  of  life, 
her  love  affair  with  the  Englishman,  her  months  of  waiting,  her 
disappointment,  her  reversion  to  her  own  people,  her  later  mar- 
riage and  life,  and  her  death  ;  it  attempts  also  to  trace  a  complete 
change  of  character.  And  all  this  in  some  seventeen  hundred 
words. J  Obviously,  summary  is  the  only  method,  and  it  is  as 
inevitable  that  Lispeth  should  be  condensed  long-story,  as  that 
Tht  Linn/  Mi,i  o'  Larut  should  lie  anecdote.  But  even  as  Kip- 
ling's anecdotes  are  the  anecdotes  of  genius,  by  no  means  mere 
anecdotes,  even  so  his  condensed  long-stories  are  the  condensed 
long-stories  of  genius,  by  no  means  lacking  in  admirably  effective 


PLOTS  AND   THEIE   SIGNIFICANCE  59 

concrete  detail.  For  example:  "One  da}',  a  few  months  after 
she  was  seventeen  years  old,  Lispeth  went  out  for  a  walk.  .  .  . 
She  came  back  at  full  dusk,  stepping  down  the  breakneck  descent 
into  Kotgarh  with  something  heavy  in  her  arms.  The  Chap- 
lain's wife  was  dozing  in  the  drawing-room  when  Lispeth  came 
in  breathing  heavily  and  very  exhausted  with  her  burden.  Lis- 
peth put  it  down  on  the  sofa,  and  said  simply,  'This  is  my 
husband.  I  found  him  on  the  Bagi  Road.  He  has  hurt  himself. 
"We  will  nurse  him,  and  when  he  is  well,  your  husband  shall 
marry  him  to  me.' 

"This  was  the  first  mention  Lispeth  had  ever  made  of  her 
matrimonial  views,  and  the  Chaplain's  wife  shrieked  with 
horror."  In  this  brief  passage  is  compressed  all  one  needs  to 
know  concerning  the  time,  the  nature  of  the  country,  the  con- 
trasting social  groups — native  and  English — the  contrasting 
characters — Lispeth  and  the  Chaplain's  wife,  Lispeth 's  motives 
and  intentions,  and  the  "exciting  moment"  of  the  story.  But 
even  here  the  striking  thing  is  the  extreme  rapidity  of  the  narra- 
tive :  Lispeth 's  finding  of  the  Englishman  is  omitted,  or  summed 
up  rather  in  the  single  sentence,  "I  found  him  on  the  Bagi 
Road."  Contrast  with  this  sentence  the  more  leisurely  method 
of  Bret  Harte.  In  The  Chatelaine  of  Burnt  Rielge,  his  vigorous 
and  masterful  heroine  found,  at  dusk,  lying  insensible  in  the 
road,  the  victim  of  an  accident.  "Where  Kipling  uses  seven 
words  Bret  Harte  requires  three  pages.  He  begins  convention- 
ally with  a  description  of  the  landscape :  "  It  had  grown  dusk 
on  Burnt  Ridge.  ...  A  faint  glow  still  lingered  over  the  red 
valley  road.  .  .  .  Night  was  already  creeping  up  out  of  remote 
canons."  Then  he  introduces  the  heroine,,  dim  and  mysterious 
at  first,  clearer  as  the  story  proceeds : 


GO  KIPLING   THE  STORY   WHITER 

At  a  point  where  the  road  began  to  encroach  upon  the  mountainside  in 

its  alow  winding  ascent  the  darkness  had  become  so  real  that  a  young  girl 
cantering  along  the  rising  terrace  found  difficulty  in  guiding  her  horse,  -with 
eyes  still  dazzled  by  the  sunset  fires. 

"In  spite  of  her  precautions,  the  animal  suddenly  shied  at  some  object 
in  the  obscured  roadway,  and  nearly  unseated  her. . . .  But  she  was  appar- 
ently a  good  horsewoman,  for  the  mischance  which  might  have  thrown  a 
less  practical  or  more  timid  rider  seemed  of  little  moment  to  her.  With 
a  strong  hand  and  determined  gesture  she  wheeled  her  frightened  horse 
back  into  the  track,  and  rode  him  directly  at  the  object.  But  here  she 
herself  slightly  recoiled,  for  it  was  the  body  of  a  man  lying  in  the  road. 

Note  the  more  careful  art  of  Bret  Harte's  method — how  he 
creates  a  little  suspense  from  moment  to  moment,  even  though 
he  is  dealing  only  with  minor  incidents.  Who  and  what  was 
the  girl?  "What  the  dark  object  in  the  road?  Unlike  Lispeth, 
the  American  girl  does  not  at  once  conceive  the  idea  of  a  possible 
husband.  At  least  Bret  Harte  gallantly  remains  silent  on  that 
point,  even,  indeed,  until  the  last  sentence  of  the  story,  when  he 
says  simply:  "The  Chatelaine  of  Burnt  Ridge  never  married." 
Just  now  she  is  thinking  of  other  matters : 

As  she  leaned  forward  over  her  horse 's  shoulder,  she  could  see  by  the 
dim  light  that  he  was  a  minor,  and  that,  though  motionless,  he  was  breath- 
ing stertorously.  Drunk,  no  doubt! — an  accident  of  the  locality  alarming 
only  to  her  horse.  But  although  she  cantered  impatiently  forward,  she 
had  not  proceeded  a  hundred  yards  before  she  stopped  reflectively,  and 
tutted  back  again.      He  had  not  moved.... 

Dismounting,  she  succeeded  in  dragging  him  to  a  safe  position  by  the 
bank.  The  act  discovered  his  face,  which  was  young,  and  unknown  to  her. 
"Wiping  it  with  the  silk  handkerchief  which  was  loosely  slung  around  his 
neck  after  the  fashion  of  his  class,  she  gave  a  quick  feminine  glance  around 
her  and  then  approached  her  own  and  rather  handsome  face  near  his  lips. 
There  was  no  odor  of  alcohol  in  the  thick  and  heavy  respiration.  Mounting 
again,  she  rode  forward  at  an  accelerated  pace. . .  . 

Harte's  is  a  more  leisurely  art.  but  it  is  the  typical  art  of 
the  short-story — the  full  information  in  regard  to  the  time,  the 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  61 

place,  the  persons,  the  character  of  the  heroine,  all  translated 
ingeniously  into  narrative  terms.  "Drunk,  no  doubt,"  is  the 
only  direct  revelation  of  the  girl's  thought.  We  learn  of  her 
later  hesitation  and  of  the  final  revision  of  her  opinion  only 
through  her  actions.  No  less  typical  is  the  careful  conduct  of 
the  narrative,  the  gradual  "focussing,"  the  holding  back  point 
by  point,  the  little  mysteries  gradually  cleared,  the  larger  mys- 
tery of  the  story — the  identity  of  the  man  and  the  cause  of  the 
accident.  All  this  requires  more  careful  composition  than 
Lispeth.  Unhurried  as  it  is,  it  is  yet  in  the  manner  of  the  true 
short-story :  Lispeth  is  in  the  manner  of  the  condensed  long-story. 
Harte's  Rose  of  Tuolumne,  also,  is  roughly  parallel  with 
Lispeth  and  illustrates  the  same  contrasts.  Princess  Bob  and 
Her  Friends,  though  it  deals  with  the  unhappy  adventures  of 
an  Indian  woman  in  contact  with  narrowly  religious  whites, 
consists  rather  of  a  series  of  unconnected  incidents  than  of  an 
organic  plot  and  is  valuable  mainly  as  revealing  the  similarity  of 
Harte  and  Kipling  in  attitude  toward  life.  It  is  not,  of  course, 
to  be  understood  that  Harte  was  a  more  consistent  writer  of 
short-stories,  or  that  he  had  a  better  understanding  of  the  real 
nature  of  the  short-story  than  Kipling.  Kipling,  doubtless,- 
owed  much  to  his  master,  but  he  has  achieved  a  higher  and  more 
varied  development  of  his  art.  Kipling,  I  say,  owed  much  to 
his  master:  this  is  perhaps  the  best  place  for  a  digression 
concerning  the  nature  of  that  debt.  Or  rather  for  bringing 
together  some  of  the  more  striking  characteristics  in  which  the 
Englishman  resembles  his  American  predecessor;  whether  these 
resemblances,  in  each  case,  are  the  result  of  imitation,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  or  of  similarity  in  temperament,  or  of  similarity 
in  situation,  or  of  exposure  to  the  same  literary  influences — as 


62  KIPLIXG  THE  STOFY  WRIT  EH 

for  example  to  that  of  Dickens — it  is  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
impossible  to  say. 

Crilics  of  Kipling,  early  and  late,  have  seen  some  sort  of 
relation  with  Harte.  Andrew  Lang,  writing  in  1891,  mentioned 
the  opinion  of  "a  young  Scotch  gentleman,  writing  French,  and 
writing  it  wonderfully  well,  in  a  Parisian  review,"  who  "chose 
to  regard  Mr.  Kipling  as  little  but  an  imitator  of  Bret  Harte, 
deriving  his  popularity  mainly  from  the  novel  and  exotic 
character  of  his  subjects.  No  doubt,''  Lang  admitted,  "if  Mr. 
Kipling  has  ;i  literary  progenitor,  it  is  Mr.  Bret  Harte."  Kip- 
ling himself,  however,  visiting  California  some  two  years  earlier, 
had  freely  expressed  his  admiration  for  Bret  Harte  aud  had 
revealed  his  familiarity  with  his  work.  He  had  declared  San 
Francisco  worth  a  great  deal  less  to  the  outside  world  than 
the  man  who  had  made  it  hallowed  ground.  He  had  objected 
to  American  voices  largely  because  they  ruined  Bret  Harte  for 
him,  because  he  found  himself  "catching  through  the  roll  of  his 
rhythmical  prose  the  cadence  of  his  peculiar  fatherland.  (let 
an  American  lady  to  read  to  you  'How  Santa  Claus  came  to 
Simpson's  Bar,'  and  see  how  much  is,  under  her  tongue,  left 
of  the  beauty  of  the  original."  Leaving  San  Francisco  Kipling 
travelled  northward  through  California.  "At  six  in  the  morn- 
ing the  heat  was  distinctly  unpleasant,  but  seeing  with  the  eye 
of  the  flesh  that  I  was  in  Bret  Harte 's  own  country,  I  rejoiced. 
There  were  the  pines  and  madrone-clad  hills  his  miners  lived 
and  fought  among;  there  was  the  heated  red  earth  that  showed 
whence  the  gold  had  been  wrashed;  the  dry  gulch,  the  red,  dusty 
road  where  Hamblin  was  used  to  stop  the  stage  in  the  intervals 
of  his  elegant  leisure  and  superior  card-play ;  there  wras  the 
timber  felled  and  sweating  resin  in  the  sunshine;  and,  above  all, 


PLOTS   AND   THE  IE   SIGNIFICANCE  63 

there  was  the  quivering  pungent  heat  that  Bret  Harte  drives 
into  your  dull  brain  with  the  magic  of  his  pen.  When  we 
stopped  at  a  collection  of  packing  cases  dignified  by  the  name 
of  a  town,  my  felicity  was  complete.  The  name  of  the  place  was 
something  offensive,  .  .  .  but  it  owned  a  cast-iron  fountain  worthy 
of  a  town  of  thirty  thousand.  Next  to  the  fountain  was  a 
'hotel,'  at  least  seventeen  feet  high  including  the  chimney,  and 
next  to  the  hotel  was  the  forest — the  pine,  the  oak,  and  the 
untrammelled  undergrowth  of  the  hillside.  A  cinnamon-bear 
cub — Baby  Sylvester  in  the  very  fur — was  tied  to  the  stump  of 
a  tree  opposite  the  fountain ;  a  pack-mule  dozed  in  the  dust-haze, 
a  red-shirted  miner  in  a  slouch  hat  supported  the  hotel,  a  blue- 
shirted  miner  swung  round  the  corner,  and  the  two  went  indoors 
for  a  drink.  A  girl  came  out  of  the  only  other  house  but  one, 
and  shading  her  eyes  with  a  brown  hand  stared  at  the  panting 
train.  She  didn't  recognise  me,  but  I  knew  her — had  known 
her  for  years.  She  was  M'liss.  She  never  married  the  school- 
master, after  all,  but  stayed,  always  young  and  always  fair, 
among  the  pines.  I  knew  Red-Shirt  too.  He  was  one  of  the 
bearded  men  who  stood  back  when  Tennessee  claimed  his  partner 
from  the  hands  of  the  Law.  The  Sacramento  River,  a  few  yards 
away,  shouted  that  all  these  things  were  true.  The  train  went 
on  while  Baby  Sylvester  stood  on  his  downy  head,  and  M'liss 
swung  her  sun-bonnet  by  the  strings." 

Kipling  evidently  retained  a  lively  recollection  of  Bret 
Harte;  he  does  not  write  as  one  writes  who  has  "gotten  up" 
his  author  for  the  occasion;  the  mis-spelling  of  "Hamblin"  is 
additional  evidence,  if  additional  evidence  is  necessary.  He 
remembered  Harte 's  style  as  "driving  an  impression  into  your 
dull  brain,"  a  virtue  which  he  himself  had  sought  and  achieved 


KIPLING    l  111    8T0B1    WRITER 

— even,  as  Andrew  Lang  pul  it.  ;i  "t btrusive  knocking  of  the 

nail  on  the  head."      <  »n  the  other  band  In-  does  nol  Beem,  in 
these  earlier  stories,  to  have  aimed  a1  thai  rhythmic  beauty  of 

style  which  could  I"-  destroyed  by  the  voi t  an  alien  reader. 

"Yon  will  butcher  the  style  to  carve  into  your  own  jerky 
jargon,"  says  Mcintosh  Jellaludin  when  he  hands  his  notes  to 
Kipling;  ami  the  phrase  may  Berve  as  a  rough  description  of 
Kipling's  manner;  it  could  ool  be  applied  to  the  style  of  Brel 
Hart''.  Y<t  both  were  journalists,  and  each  after  his  own  kind 
wrote  "journalese."  Harte 's  pretended  quotations  from  con- 
temporary aewspapi  rs  read  lil<<'  an  exaggeration  of  Barte's  own 
manner:  they  have  the  same  classical  allusions,  the  same  exag 
gerations,  the  same  naive  Btiffness,  though  nol  in  the  same 
degree.  He  is  always  a  little  formal,  a  little  pompous,  he  writes 
with  something  like  the  flourish  of  the  old-fashioned  Spencerian 
hand.  Kipling's  journalese  was  very  different:  it  was  far  more 
rapid  in  movemenl  ;  it  aimed  to  be  as  commonplace  and  as  busi- 
ness-like as  possible,  to  keep  always  to  the  lower  levels  of  prose. 
It  was  not  formed  npon  the  model  of  Brel  Barte's. 

However,  it  was  less  as  the  stylist  than  as  the  portrayer  of 
landscapes  that  Kipling  thought  of  Harte.  Naturally  enough, 
indeed,  the  actual  California  scene  recalled  to  him  Harl  - 
descriptions  of  it ;  he  saw  in  it  what  Harte  had  led  him  to  expect. 
His  mind,  moreover,  had  selected  just  those  features  of  the 
American  stories  that  would  naturally  impress  themselves  upon 
an  Anglo-Indian — the  quivering  pungenl  heat,  the  dry  gulch, 
the  red  dusty  road,  the  pack-mule  dozing  in  the  dust-haze. 
These  are  characteristic  also  of  the  Eas1  Indian  landscape,  and 
one  can  imagine  Hart''  furnishing  through  them  the  Little  im- 
pnlse  necessary  to  direct  the  creative  energy  of  Kipling  to  the 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  65 

portrayal  in  short-stories  and  verses  of  Anglo-Indian  life.  And, 
one  may  conjecture  with  a  fair  degree  of  certainty,  Kipling 
would,  in  carrying  out  his  plan,  instinctively  see  and  uncon- 
sciously select  the  kind  of  scene  and  character  that  Bret  Harte 
had  taught  him  to  see  and  to  select.  At  the  same  time,  Kipling 
would  be  influenced,  as  Harte  had  been,  though  independently 
of  Harte,  by  the  sense  of  contrast — the  contrast  between  two 
civilizations,  between  the  frontier  and  "home,"  and  between 
the  various  phases  of  the  frontier  Life  itself.  Only  while  there 
was  in  California  a  kind  of  melting-pot,  in  which  were  thrown 
together  people  of  most  varied  origins,  leading  the  same  sort 
of  life,  in  India  the  races  were  kept  distinct,  so  that  Harte 
emphasized  common  human  characteristics,  and  Kipling,  the 
distinguishing  characteristics  of  the  black  and  the  white.  Thus 
it  is  naturally  not  Harte  but  Kipling  who  becomes  the  singer 
of  the  race  or  clan.  The  Californian  life  and  the  Indian  were 
alike,  again,  in  that  stress  of  action  and  emotion  swept  aside 
shams  and  hypocrisies  and  revealed  the  vanity  of  conventional 
morality.  Thus  both  Harte  and  Kipling  delight  to  emphasize 
the  good  that  is  in  evil  characters  and  the  evil  that  is  in 
good  ones.  Just  as  Mulvaney  is  the  most  famous  of  Kipling 's 
creatures,  Jack  Hamlin,  or  John  Oakhurst,  is  the  most  famous 
of  Harte 's;  Mother  Shipton,  like  Mrs.  Hauksbee,  is  compounded 
of  good  and  evil ;  and  Miggles  and  Ameera  are  alike  more  loyal 
than  wedded  wives.  Harte 's  heroes,  like  Kipling's,  are  con-, 
scientiously  unheroic,  and  as  sedulously  avoid  the  appearance 
of  good. 

Harte,  a  faithful  follower  of  Dickens,  makes  much  of  the 
pathos  of  childhood,  of  the  sick  or  the  dying  child.  It  is  not 
inconceivable  that  the  moving  scene  in  How  Santa  Clans  Came 


66  KIPL1  M.   Till    8T0B1    n/,7/  /  S 

to  Simpson's  Bar  revealed  to  Kipling  the  possibilities  of  the 
situation  which  he  Bets  forth  in  the  oo  Less  moving  Muhammad 
Din.  Carry,  the  child  who,  in  -1//  Episodi  of  Fiddletown,  un- 
consciously exerted  an  influence  for  good  and  prevented  the 
elopemenl  of  ;i  faithless  wife  with  her  lover,  may  have  furnished 
a  hint  for  His  Majesty  ih<  King.  I  should  hardly  venture 
tn  connect  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  with  Thi  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp,  ye1  it  may  nut  be  pure  chance  thai  Tota  and  The  Luck. 
both  born  nut  of  wedlock,  charm  by  the  same  instinctive  move- 
ments. "As  Kcutuck  bent  over  the  candle-box  half  curiously, 
the  child  turned,  and,  in  a  spasm  of  pain,  caught  at  his  groping 
finger,  and  held  it  fast  for  a  moment.  Keiiiuek  looked  foolish 
and  embarrassed.  Something  like  a  blush  tried  to  asserl  itself 
in  his  weather-beaten  cheek.  ...'He  rastled  with  my  finger,'  he 
remarked  to  Tipton,  holding  up  the  member,  'the  d — d  little 
cuss!'  And    "Holden    found    one    helpless   little   hand   that 

closed  feebly  on  his  finger.  And  tin-  clutch  ran  through  his 
body  till  it  settled  about  his  heart.'' 

Conceivably,  again,  Kipling  may  have  found  in  Ilarte  a 
kind  of  authority  or  countenance  for  his  own  natural  tendency 
oward  self-assertion  and  self-portraiture.  For  Ilarte,  like 
Kipling,  appears  in  his  own  stories  in  Ins  own  person.  Some- 
times he  discloses  unexpectedly  the  fact  that  he  himself  was 
acquainted  with  the  persons  of  the  story:  he  "remembered  quite 
distinctly"  Mrs.  Tretherick  at  one  period  of  her  career;  he 
"recently  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  at  Wiesbaden"  the 
Baroness  Streichholzen.  And  like  Kipling  he  adorns  with  his 
own  traits  the  characters  in  his  stories.  The  events  which  he 
narrates  are,  furthermore,  as  with  Kipling,  made  more  real  by 
the  recurrence  of  the  same  characters — Hamlin,  Oakhurst,  Yuba 
Bill,  Colonel  Starbottle,  and  others. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  67 

There  is,  finally,  a  marked  resemblance  in  the  attitude  toward 
life.  Harte's  first  success  was,  like  Kipling's,  a  succes  de 
scandale.  Yet  Harte  like  Kipling  was  given  to  moralizing, 
though  he  too  preached  an  unconventional  morality.  He  de- 
lighted to  emphasize  the  viciousness  of  respectable  people.  The 
parents  of  the  Chatelaine  of  Burnt  Kidge  are  worthless,  bigoted, 
irritable,  always  complaining,  and  seem  to  live  only  to  make 
their  daughter's  life  unbearable.  Her  mother  appears  "to  be 
nursing  her  resentment  and  a  large  bible,  which  she  held  clasped 
against  her  shawled  bosom  at  the  same  moment."  What 
wonder  that  Josephine  is  'tolerant  of  everything  but  human 
perfection ! ' '  These  perfect  people  are  particularly  ready  to 
suspect  others.  A  harmless  occurrence  fired  the  "inexperienced 
Ley  ton  ['a  married  man  and  a  deacon']  with  those  exaggerated 
ideas  and  intense  credulity  regarding  vice  common  to  some  very 
good  men."  As  with  Kipling  there  is  the  complementary  view 
which  emphasizes  the  virtues  of  the  vicious.  "I  trust,"  wrote 
Harte  in  his  first  preface,  "I  trust  that  in  the  following  sketches 
I  have  abstained  from  any  positive  moral.  I  might  have  painted 
my  villains  of  the  blackest  dye, — so  black,  indeed,  that  the  orig- 
inals thereof  would  have  contemplated  them  with  the  glow  of 
comparative  virtue.  I  might  have -made  it  impossible  for  them 
to  have  performed  a  virtuous  or  generous  action,  and  have  thus 
avoided  that  moral  confusion  which  is  apt  to  arise  in  the  con- 
templation of  mixed  motives  and  qualities.  But  I  should  have 
burdened  myself  Avith  the  responsibility  of  their  creation,  which, 
as  a  humble  writer  of  romance  and  entitled  to  no  particular 
reverence,  I  did  not  care  to  do."  Harte  does,  however,  some- 
times portray  really  evil  persons ;  yet  even  these  may,  as  with 
Kipling,  sometimes  exert  a  beneficent  influence.     Thanks  to  the 


t!S  KJPl  ING    I  III    si  <>l;)     ll  /,//  /•/,• 

effed  of  the  assumed  personality  of  the  infamous  Mrs.  Decker, 
Oakhursl  the  gambler  "read  more;  he  i<><»k  long  walks,  he  sold 

his  fast  hoiM's;  he  wni  tn  church."  Be  even  ordered  a  new 
suit  of  clothes  "something  respectabli  something  thai  doesn'1 
exactly  til  me,  yon  know."  Even  so,  in  Kipling's  /"  Error, 
Moriarity  is  led  to  reform  through  the  influence  of  the  aotorious 
.Mi's.  Reiver. 

These,  then,  an'  a  few  of  the  many  points  in  which  Kipling's 
stories  are  similar  to  Harte's.  In  many  of  them  there  is.  of 
course,  a  difference  of  degree,  where,  for  example,  Harte's  de- 
scriptions are  vivid,  Kipling's  an'  still  more  so;  where  Harte 
emphasizes  tin-  admixture  of  good  with  evi]  in  his  characters, 
Kipling  is  still  more  emphatic;  where  Harte  intervenes  now  and 
then  in  his  own  stories,  Kipling  is  intensely  self-assertive;  and 
so  on.  And.  of  course,  the  contrasts  arc  in  general  more  strik- 
ing than  the  resemblances.  Certainly  Kipling,  even  in  the 
beginning,  was  never  a  mere  imitator  of  Harte.  It  would  seem 
rather  that  he  was  indebted  to  him  for  the  first  impulse  and 
for  'In'  genera]  form  of  the  work  in  which  his  genius  found 
expression.  Had  Harte  never  lived  or  written  there  would  still 
be  a  Kipling,  bu1  a  Kipling  not  precisely  the  same. 

To  take  up  once  more  the  discussion  of  the  structure  of 
Kipling's  stories:  we  have  seen  that  his  work  reveals  two  ten- 
dencies which  make  away  from  the  short-story  manner:  the 
anecdote  tendencv,  which  leads  sometimes  to  the  selection  of  a 
motive  too  slight  and  insignificant,  and  which  leads  to  the  fail- 
ure to  elaborate  sufficiently  even  an  adequate  motive;  and  the 
condensed  long-story  tendency,  which  leads  sometimes  to  the 
selection  of  a  motive  too  large  to  he  worked  out  within  short- 
story  limits,  and  results  inevitably  in  the  writing  of  summary. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  69 

But  these  tendencies  are  by  no  means  always  carried  so  far  as 
to  result  in  actual  anecdote  or  condensed  long-story ;  for  many 
of  Kipling's  tales  are,  of  course,  true  short-stories.  And  yet 
these  tendencies  are  always  or  nearly  always  present  and  modify 
to  some  extent  the  structure  even  of  the  true  short-stories 
themselves. 

In  dealing  with  these  our  best  method  will  be,  as  with  anec- 
dote and  condensed  long-story,  to  take  a  typical  example.  CFor 
this  purpose  none  is  better  suited  than  Without  Benefit  of 
Clergy.  It  was  first  published  in  Maomllan's  Magazine  for 
June,  1890,  and  may  be  regarded  as  marking,  in  a  way,  the  close 
and  climax,  and  summing  up  most  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
first  period.  It  is  nearly  ten  thousand  words  in  length.  Writ- 
ten at  greater  leisure,  not  for  a  newspaper  but  for  a  magazine, 
not  bound  by  the  early  limitations,  it  was  yet  written  by  the  same 
Kipling,  the  Kipling  trained  in  the  offices  of  the  Gazette  and 
the  Pioneer.  It  is  perhaps  the  best  known  and  the  most  popular 
of  all  Kipling's  stories;  no  summary  is  necessary.  Without 
Benefit  of  Clergy  is  a  punning  title.  "Benefit  of  Clergy"  is 
manifestly  not  used  here  in  the  proper  sense  of  "privilege  of 
exemption  from  trial  by  a  secular  court,  allowed  to  or  claimed 
by  clergymen  arraigned  for  felony";  it  implies  rather  that  the 
union  of  Holden  and  Ameera  had  not  the  sanction  of  the  mar- 
riage ceremony,  civil  or  religious?/  That,  in  Kipling's  view, 
this  ceremony  might  be  something  of  an  empty  formality,  and 
did  not  always  insure  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie,  one  may 
gather  from  a  passage  in  In  the  Pride  of  His  Youth: 

Excepting,  always,  falling  off  a  horse,  there  is  nothing  more  fatally 
easy  than  marriage  before  the  Registrar.  The  ceremony  costs  less  than 
fifty  shillings,  and  is  remarkably  like  walking  into  a  paAvn-shop.  After 
the  declarations  of  residence  have  been  put  in,  four  minutes  will  cover  the 


7-  KIPLING   Till    8T0B1     WRITER 

rest   of  the   proc lings     fees,  attestation,  and   all.      Then   the    Registrar 

slides  tlif  blotting-pad  over  the  nanus,  and  Bays  grimly  with  his  pen  l»- 

tween    his    teeth.    ''Now     vim 're    man    ami    wife'';    ami    the   couple    walk    out 

into  the  street  feeling  as  if  something  were  horribly  illegal  Bomewhere. 
Bui   that   ceremony  holds  ami  can  drag  a   man   to  his  undoing  jusl   as 

thoroughly   as   the   "long   as  ye   both   shall    live'-   curse    from    the   altar-rails, 

with  the  bridesmaids  giggling  behind,  ami  "The  Voice  that  breathed  o'er 
Eden"  lifting  the  root'  off.     In  this  manner  was  Dicky  Ilatt  kidnapped. ..  • 

With  all  such  ceremony  Eoldes  and  Ameera  had  dispensed, 
ami  their  union  proved  more  sweet,  more  pure,  more  lasting, 
than  Dicky  llatt  s.  or  half  the  regular  marriages  of  Anglo- 
Indian  society.  This,  the  central  theme  of  the  story,  is  thus  a 
moral  concept;  and  Kipling's  purpose  is,  primarily,  not  to  tell 
a  pathetic  of  tragic  tale,  hut,  just  as  definitely  as  Addison  in 
his  essays,  to  utter  a  criticism  of  life.8  It  is  a  phase  of  his 
favorite  theme — the  essential  excellence  of  the  non-respectable — 
the  theme  that  finds  incarnation  in  such  characters  as  Mulvaney 
or  Mrs.  Bauksbee  and  in  such  stories  as  A  Bank  Fraud.  [Kip- 
ling had  dealt  in  earlier  stories  with  unions  of  this  sort  ;  he  had. 
so  to  speak,  made  experiments  in  the  treatment  of  this  motif; 
Without  Benefit  of  Clcrfjij  is  his  last  word,  the  final  perfection 
in  its  kind.  Idealization  of  the  heroine,  and  of  her  relations 
with  the  hero  is  the  way  to  success  in  such  a  story,  and  in  no 
previous  attempt  is  the  idealization  carried  so  far.  Ameera  has 
something  of  the  beauty,  the  strangeness,  the  mystery,  the 
elusiveness  of  the  fairies  of  the  Celtic  other-world,  beloved  of 
Arthur's  knights,  and  like  the  amorous  adventures  of  Guinga- 
mor,  of  Guigemar,  or  Tyolet  in  the  lais  of  Marie  de  France, 
her  story  is  removed  from  reality  and  the  judgments  of  reality. 


8  From  this  point  of  view — as  indeed  from  all  points  of  view — it  is 
interesting  to  compare  Kipling's  story  with  Stevenson's  tale  of  a  similar 
union,  The  lixuh  of  Falisu,  which  is  told  primarily  for  the  romance  of  the 
action. 


PLOTS  AND  TEEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  71 

Ameera  herself,  the  Ameera  who  sat  with  Holclen  upon  the  roof 
of  their  dwelling,  counting  the  stars,  might  well  be  the  creature 
of  another  world.  When  she  speaks,  her  words  have  the  dignity, 
the  oriental  imagery,  the  rhythm  of  a  language  utterly  alien  to 
the  shop  and  slang  of  the  Anglo-Indians.  The  mutual  devotion 
of  the  two  is,  like  that  of  medieval  lovers,  all  the  greater  because 
it  is  free,  unconstrained  by  marriage  vows.  When  cholera  comes, 
Holden  urges  Ameera  to  go  to  the  mountains.  She  refuses, 
"Let  the  mem-log  run,"  she  says. 

"Their  husbands  are  sending  them,  beloved." 
". . .  Since  when  hast  thou  been  my  husband  to  tell  me  what 
to  do?  I  have  but  borne  thee  a  son.  Thou  art  only  all  the 
desire  of  my  soul  to  me.  How  shall  I  depart  when  I  know  that 
if  evil  befall  thee  by  the  breadth  of  so  much  as  my  littlest  finger- 
nail. ...  I  should  be  aware  of  it  though  I  were  in  paradise.  .  . . 
My  lord  and  my  love,  let  there  be  no  more  foolish  talk  of  going 
away.  Where  thou  art,  I  am.  It  is  enough."  Thus  Ameera 
unconsciously  echoes  Bret  Harte  's  heroine :  "...  If  we  were  man 
and  wife  we'd  both  know  that  I  was  hound  to  do  what  I  do  now 
of  my  own  accord" — another  version,  simply,  of  the  medieval 
theory  that  love  and  marriage  were  incompatible.  Only  Ameera 
goes  further;  being  less  than  wife  she  will  be  more. 

But  such  unions  cannot  last.  The  fairy  queen  carried  Sir 
Lanval  away  to  Avalon  and  men  saw  him  no  more ;  and  so  it 
was  with  Guigemar.  Chaucer's  Dorigen  and  Arveragus  sought 
to  perpetuate  their  union  by  wedlock  and  became  for  the  Middle 
Ages  a  paradox — married  lovers.  But  Holden  and  Ameera 
could  find  no  such  solution  for  their  problem.  To  lose  himself 
in  fairyland — to  bury  himself  in  India  with  a  native  wife — was 
as  impossible  to  a  man  of  Holden 's  temperament  as  return  to 


71"  KIPLING   ill  I    sun:)     WB1TEB 

England  with  her  would  have  been.  There  was  no  way  ou1  bul 
death.  And  in  a  Eew  months  fame  the  cholera,  and  carried 
off  mother  and  child.      And   Ameera's  mother   vanished,  and 

Pir  Khan  went  upon  pilgrimage.  Even  the  house  was  de- 
stroyed. "It  shall  be  pulled  down,"  said  Durga  Dass,  "and 
the  Municipality  shall  make  a  road  across,  as  they  desire,  from 
the  burning-ghaul   to  the  city  wall,  so  that    no  man   may  say 

where  this  house  stood." 

Much  of  the  pathos  of  the  story  lies  in  Ameera's  dread  of 
the  end.  in  her  vain  yearning,  her  hoping  againsl  hope,  Eor 
permanence.  The  pathos,  too,  is  the  pathos  of  childhood. 
Anieera  herself  is  hut  a  child;  and  her  son  has  many  of  the 
endearing  traits  which  Kipling  had  recorded  in  his  earlier  stories 
of  children/  notably  in  Muhammad  Din,  and  the  simple  and 
obvious  methods  which  children  everywhere  employ  to  win  the 
hearts  of  those  about  them.  There  is  deeper  tragedy,  but  there 
is  no  more  piercing  pathos,  than  in  the  death  of  a  little  child, 
even  though  it  is  a  theme  somewhat  overworked  by  the  senti- 
mentalists, by  Dickens  and  by  Harte,  for  example;  and  it  is 
involved,  characteristically  enough,  in  the  tale  of  Chaucer's 
sentimentalist,  the  Prioress. 

If  Kipling  emphasizes  the  ideal  and  sympathetic  aspect  of 
this  union,  its  beauty,  its  strangeness,  its  transitoriness,  its 
pathos,  he  means,  as  1  have  said,  to  contrast  it  with  the  prosaic, 
regular  marriages  of  everyday.  The  whole  story,  indeed,  is  a 
story  of  contrasts.  The  two  phases  of  life,  the  Indian  and  the 
English,  are  set  one  over  against  the  other.  Once  more  it  is 
the  English  System  that  Kipling  celebrates,  the  organization, 
with  ils  intelligence,  its  discipline,  its  unquestioning  obedience 
of  orders,    in   contrast    with    the    native    ignorance   and    panic. 


PLOTS  AND  THE  IE  SIGNIFICANCE  73 

Holden  himself  is  part  of  the  system,  simply,  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  his  fellows.  The  evil  and  the  good  in  his  nature 
are  evident  on  our  first  glimpse  of  him.  He  is,  one  may  suppose, 
essentially  selfish,  with  manifest  moral  limitations,  yet  capable 
of  tenderness,  of  generous  impulses,  of  stern  devotion  to  duty. 
But  he  is  not  an  individual.  He  is  simply  the  type  of  Anglo- 
Indian  official  as  Kipling  conceives  him. 

The  other  persons  of  the  story  are  types  also.  Ameera  is 
but  typical  native,  typical  child-wife,  with  the  native  and 
childish  superstitions  and  little  jealousies,  who  charms  Holden 
by  her  beauty,  her  helplessness,  her  dependence,  her  complete 
self-abandonment.  In  her  pride  of  motherhood — "I  am  his 
mother,  and  no  hireling.  .  .  .  Shall  I  look  to  him  more  or  less  for 
the  sake  of  monev?" — she  is  to  be  contrasted  with  her  own 
mercenary  mother — "a  withered  hag"  as  the  fairy-tale  demands 
— who  "would  have  sold  Ameera  shrieking  to  the  Prince  of 
Darkness  if  the  price  had  been  sufficient,"  and  who,  when 
Ameera  lay  dead,  "shuffled  down  the  staircase,  and  in  her 
anxiety  to  take  stock  of  the  house-fittings  forgot  to  mourn." 

The  persons  are  types,  but  they  stand  out  clearly  enough ; 

and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  there  is  in  the  whole  story  scarcely 

one  epithet  to  describe  them.      They  are  permitted  to  reveal 

themselves  wholly  by  what  they  do  and  say  and  so  achieve  a 

peculiarly  vivid  reality.     Read,  for  example,  the  portrait  of  the 

least  important  of  all  the  characters,  who  doesn't  really  come 

into  the  story  at  all : 

The  Member  for  Lower  Tooting,  wandering  about  India  in  pot-hat 
and  frock-coat,  [who]  talked  largely  of  the  benefits  of  British  rule  and 
suggested  as  the  one  thing  needful  the  establishment  of  a  duly  qualified 
electoral  system. ...  It  was  the  Deputy  Commissioner  .  . .  who  lightly  told 
a    tale    that    made    Holden 's    blood    run    cold.  ..."He    [the    Member    for 


7  1  KIPLING  THE  8T0B1     R  l:i  I  I  5 

Lower  Tooting]  wdii  *t  bother  any  one  any  more.  Never  saw  a  man  so 
astonished  in  my  life.  Bj  Jove,  I  thought  he  meanl  to  a>k  n  question 
in  the  Hon-.-  aboul  it.  Pellon  passenger  in  bis  ship  -dined  aexl  him — 
bowled  over  by  cholera  and  died  in  eighteen  hours.  You  aeedn'1  laugh, 
you  fellows.     The  Member  for  Lower  Tooting  is  awfully  angry  about  it; 

but  he's  more  search  I  think  he's  tfuing  to  take  his  enlightened  sell' 
out  of  India. 

There  is  the  member  for  Lower  Tooting;  oo  adjectives  arc 
needed.  And  there,  too,  is  the  lighl  talk  of  grave  matters,  the 
cynicism,  so  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Kipling's  Anglo- 
Indians,  'idic  discussion  of  impending  cholera  goes  on,  and 
one  adds.  "There  won't  be  much  leave  this  year,  bu1  there  oughl 
to  be  a  great  deal  of  promotion."'  This  Lightness  and  cynicism, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  holds  Kipling  down  to  the  level  of  prose, 

which  prevents  anything  like  fine  writing  is.  however,  confi I 

to  the  English  side,  the  real  world  of  this  story. 

Llf  Ilolden  and  Ameera  and  the  rest  are  types,  this  is  not  to 
say  that  they  are  personified  abstractions,  that  they  lack  human- 
ity. If  they  are  not  highly  complex  individuals,  if  they  are  in 
no  way  peculiar,  they  are,  all  the  more,  normal  or  elemental 
human  beings.  Certainly  it  is  not  as  a  type,  not  as  an  Aiiirlo- 
Indian  official,  but  as  man  simply,  that  Ilolden,  like  every  hus- 
band and  father,  suffers  hope,  anxiety,  joy,  sorrow,  dread,  and 
poignant  grief.  And  so  it  is  with  Ameera;  though  it  is  true 
that  both  suffer  in  pari  because  they  are  types:  Holden  because 
his  connection  with  Ameera  must  remain  unknown;  Ameera 
because  she  knows  that  one  of  her  white  sisters  will  inevitably 
win  Ilolden  in  the  end.  But  these  social  vicissitudes  only  in- 
crease a  sorrow — and  a  joy  as  well — which  are  in  themselves 
elemental.  It  is  largely  because  of  this  universal  human  quality 
of  the  emotion,  because   it    is  the  result  of  experience  common 


PLOTS  AND  TEEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  7o 

to  all  humanity,  that   Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  is  so  widely 
regarded  as  the  best  of  Kipling's  stories. 

There  is  no  lack  of  emphasis  upon  the  emotional  element. 
On  almost  every  page  there  is  some  reference  to  it,  and  the 
reader  can  follow  Holden's  mental  state  from  beginning  to  end. 
The  lines  of  emotion  are  singularly  complete ;  or,  perhaps,  one 
should  say  rather  that  Kipling  never  loses  sight  of  the  emotional 
value  of  his  material.  For  he  is  continually  introducing  bits 
of  dialogue  and  action,  little  incidents  like  the  clutch  of  the 
baby's  hand  on  Holden's  finger,  simply  because  of  their  moving 
quality.  There  are  two  emotional  crises,  two  climaxes  of  grief, 
in  which  the  situations  are  allowed  to  stand  for  themselves. 
In  general  there  is  little  analysis,  little  direct  description  of 
emotional  states.  Though  the  story  as  a  whole  is  largely  a  study 
in  emotion,  it  is  not  a  psychological  study.  It  is  a  study — or 
rather  it  is  not  a  study  at  all,  but  a  presentation  of  the  dramatic 
expression  of  emotion,  by  action,  gesture,  word,  by  involuntary 
physical  reaction.  The  description  of  the  setting  at  the  close 
is  full  of  emotional  suggestion :  ' '  He  found  that  the  rains  had 
torn  down  the  mud  pillars  of  the  gateway,  and  the  heavy  wooden 
gate  that  had  guarded  his  life  hung  lazily  from  one  hinge. 
[This  gate  has  had  throughout,  a  kind  of  symbolic  significance, 
as  if  it  were  the  barrier  of  fairyland  which  shut  out  the  real 
world.]  There  was  grass  three  inches  high  in  the  courtyard; 
Pir  Khan's  lodge  was  empty,  and  the  sodden  thatch  sagged 
between  the  beams.  .  .  .  Ameera  's  room  and  the  other  one  where 
Tota  had  lived  were  heavy  with  mildew;  and  the  narrow  stair- 
case leading  to  the  roof  was  streaked  and  stained  with  rain-borne 
mud. ' ' 


KIPLING  Til  I    8T0ST   WEITEE 

Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  is  Largely  t'i-« ■< ■  from  those  sudden 
descents  to  prose  which  destroy  the  dignity  of  emotional  sit- 
uations in  other  stories  bul  no1  wholly  free.  Occasionally 
there  are  banal  phrases:  "Ameera  was  wild  with  delight."  "A 
vast ...  tenderness  ...  made  him  choke."  [Kipling's  common 
formula  Eor  the  self-repressed  Englishman's  expression  of 
grief  or  tender  feeling.]  "Holden's  gift ...  delighted  her  im- 
mensely." "Ameera,  wild  with  terror."  "A  tale.. .made 
Holden  "s  blood  run  cold."  "Holden,  sick  with  fear."  "He 
tied  ...  with  his  heart  in  his  mouth.*'  Passages  of  this  sort  are 
qoI  many,  but  they  do  mar  the  story.  They  show  that,  though 
Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  marks  the  heighl  of  Kipling's  pathetic 
prose,  he  was  still  writing  after  the  manner  of  the  journalist  who 
cannot  stop  to  find  the  one  perfect  word  or  phrase  and  makes 
use  instead  of  the  well-worn  coin  of  everyday  speech. 

In  the  matter  of  Structure,  also,  the  author  of  Without 
Benefit  of  Clergy  is  still  the  Kipling  of  Plain   Tales  from  tin 

Hills.  The  two  tendencies  which  make  away  from  the  short- 
story  are  still  present,  the  tendency  to  write  anecdote  and  the 
tendency  to  summarize  The  first,  it  must  be  confessed,  is 
scarcely  felt;  it  appears  perhaps  only  in  the  account  of  the 
Member  for  Lower  Tooting;  the  second  is  more  pronounced. 
Tie-  motif  itself  of  Without  Benefit  of  Chrfjij  has  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  a  long-story:  a  considerable  time  niiisl  elapse; 
Tota's  history  must  be  traced  from  his  birth  until  the  moment 
when  he  walks  and  talks  and  calls  himself  a  man.  This  material, 
indeed,  is  capable  of  concentration,  capable  of  short-story 
treatment,  but  it  is  not  wholly  concentrated;  it  is  not  wholly 
free  from  summary,  from  narrative  in  general  terms,  from  the 
manner  typical  of  the  condensed  long-story. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  77 

But,  after  all,  as  one  reads  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  One 
is  scarcely  conscious  of  any  lack  either  of  concentration  or  of 
concreteness.  For  the  passages  that  are  not  part  of  organic 
scenes,  the  summaries  and  the  explanations,  deal  with  narrative 
material,  with  matter  germane  to  the  story/}  There  is  no  dis- 
cussion of  marriage  in  general,  as  there  is  in  In  the  Pride  of  His 
Youth,  or  of  the  unions  of  Englishmen  with  native  women;  and 
the  matters  summarized — the  connective  parts  of  the  narrative, 
the  feelings  of  the  chief  persons,  the  course  of  the  cholera — all 
these  are  strictly  parts  of  the  story.  The  summaries,  moreover, 
have  a  remarkable  effect  of  concreteness,  owing  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  bits  of  dialogue,  here  and  there,  or  of  little  incidents, 
like  those  which  adorn  the  account  of  Tota's  childhood,  and  also 
owing  to  their  own  peculiar  picturesqueness,  as  in  the  passage 
that  tells  in  rapid  summary  of  the  spread  of  the  cholera:  "The 
people  crowded  the  trains,  hanging  on  to  the  footboards  and 
squatting  on  the  roofs  of  the  carriages,  and  the  cholera  followed 
them,  for  at  each  station  they  dragged  out  the  dead  and  the 
dying.  They  died  by  the  roadside,  and  the  horses  of  the 
Englishmen  shied  at  the  corpses  in  the  grass.  The  rains  did 
not  come,  and  the  earth  turned  to  iron  lest  man  should  escape 
death  by  hiding  in  her."  Xo  individual,  no  single  instance  is 
mentioned — the  passage  is  pure  generalization — but,  at  the  same 
time,  it  is  pure  narrative;  and  it  is  immensely  picturesque;  the 
mind  of  the  reader  automatically  supplies  the  concrete  pictures. 
Kipling  writes  summary,  but  it  is  the  summary  of  genius.  It 
is  the  summary  of  a  special  type  of  genius :  not  of  one  whose 
main  strength  lies  in  his  intellectual  powers,  for  he  would  have 
generalized  about  the  nature  of  the  disease,  the  character  of  the 
native,  and  so  on,  and  given  us  some  figures  by  way  of  pallid 


>  KIP1  ING   I  HI-  8T0B1     WRITES, 

illustration.  h  is  the  summary  of  the  genius  whose  strength 
lies  rather  in  memory,  in  a  marvelously  vivid  sense  of  fact,  who 
sees,  even  when  he  summarizes,  and  makes  us  see. 

No1  tin-  genius  whose  strength  Lies  in  his  intellectual  powers, 
for  such  a  one  would  group  his  material,  the  product  <»i*  memory 
and  imagination,  in  carefully  constructed  scenes,  few  and  elab- 
orate. And  it  is  likely  that  he  would,  moreover,  organize  the 
pint  of  his  story  so  as  to  produce  the  greatesl  possible  effect  on 
the  reader,  so  as  to  hold  his  attention  by  mystery  or  suspense; 
proportion  his  narrative  so  as  to  give  most  space  to  what  should 
be  most  impressive  and  dwell  longest  upon  it.  Bui  these  things 
Kipling  does  not  do.  The  facts  recalled  by  memory,  brough.1 
together  into  new  combinations  by  imagination,  crowd  in  too  fasl 
upon  him,  to  permit  the  slow  elaboration  of  a  long  scene,  the  hold- 
ing back  of  a  point,  the  gradual  enfolding  and  unfolding  of  a 
mystery.  The  reader  knows  as  well  as  the  author  that  the 
story  can  end  in  only  one  way.  And  the  author  reveals  his 
grasp  of  the  whole,  his  underlying  consciousness  of  the  inevitable 
end  by  only  two  methods:  one  of  them  is  the  ominous  hints  of 
how  the  end  is  to  come;  the  other  is  the  contrasts,  in  place  and 
time  and  society,  between  the  Indian  and  the  English  worlds, 
and  the  emotional  contrasts  between  joy  and  sorrow. 

lieyond  such  touches  as  these  Kipling  does  not  go.  He  does 
not  proportion  the  parts  of  his  story.  Of  his  three  parts  the 
third  and  most  important  is,  indeed,  the  longest.  But  in  Part  II, 
Tota's  illness  and  death  are  passed  over  in  a  few  words  and 
five  pages  are  devoted  to  the  scene  on  the  roof.  Tota's  death 
should,  of  course,  have  less  space  and  emphasis  than  Ameer  a 's, 
but  even  Ameera's  with  all  the  preliminaries,  has  only  one  page. 

The  excellence  of  the  structure  of  Willi  out  Benefit  of  Clergy 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  79 

lies,  then,  rather  in  the  crowding  of  vivid,  picturesque,  and 
interesting  details,9  rather  in  incident,  than  in  carefully  planned 
and  elaborated  scenes.  By  virtue  of  this  concreteness  of  hand- 
ling, of  the  weight  and  significance  of  its  theme,  and  of  the 
sufficient  elaboration  of  all  the  elements  of  narrative  it  is  to  be 
regarded  not  as  anecdote  or  condensed  long-story,  but  as  true 
short-story. 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  our  analysis:  Without  Benefit  of 
Clergy  is  typical  of  Kipling's  work  of  this  period  in  that  it  has 
for  initial  impulse  the  desire  to  show  the  superiority  of  this 
irregular  union  over  many  regular  marriages — a  phase  of  his 
celebration  of  the  non-respectable  as  compared  with  the  respect- 
able. It  is  the  best  representative  of  the  group  of  stories  which 
deal  with  the  union  of  Englishmen  and  Indian  women.  It  is  the 
best  of  the  group  of  stories  which  deal  with  the  pathos  of  child- 
hood. It  illustrates  Kipling's  skill  in  adopting  the  points  of 
view  of  the  child,  the  native,  the  English  official  of  the  System. 
The  characters  are  types  and  their  emotions  are  simple  and 
elemental,  if  not  deeply  studied,  yet  convincingly  and  affect- 
ingly  represented.  So  far  as  all  these  matters  of  technique  are 
concerned  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  may  be  regarded  as  an 
admirable  representative  of  Kipling's  early  manner. 

"We  have  still  to  analyze  the  structure  of  the  early  tales  in 
general,  and  here,  we  shall  find,  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  is 
less  thoroughly  typical.  For,  while  its  summary  though  pictur- 
esque narrative,  the  brevity  of  its  structural  units,  its  crowding 
with  vivid  incident,  can  be  paralleled  elsewhere,  the  preference 


9  Stevenson,  whose  own  practice  illustrated  the  perfection  of  scenic  struc- 
ture, yet,  in  theory,  insisted  upon  the  value  of  mere  concrete  incident,  rather 
than  action  or  complexity  of  plot,  to  ' '  realize  the  sense  of  danger  and 
provoke  the  sympathy  of  fear." 


B  IPLING   I  Hi    8  i  OBI    n  i:i  I  I  I; 

of  situations  to  scenes,  the  large  Dumber  of  these,  the  hints  of 
tragedy  to  come,  the  tragic  irony,  and  the  opening  exposition 
in  dialogue  are  nol  of  common  occurrence. 

It  is  difficult  to  generalize  in  regard  to  any  phase  of  Kipling's 
technique,  and  particularly  difficult  in  regard  to  the  matter  of 
structure,  even  when  one  confines  oneself  to  a  single  period  of 
his  work.      He  seems  to  have  had  no  regular  plan  or  plans  of 

attack  on  his  material;  his  stories  ca »t  be  classified  according 

to  their  architectural  designs,  according  to  schemes  or  patterns, 
simply  because  these  are  so  numerous,  v..  various,  that,  for  the 
one  hundred  and  ten  stories  there  would  be  one  hundred  and 
ten  classes.  One  can  do  no  more,  therefore,  than  note  a  few  of 
the  methods  of  handling  the  various  parts  of  a  story,  which  seem 
to  be  roughly  characteristic. 

He  begins  his  stories  in  a  dozen  differenl  ways.  Sometimes 
he  begins  with  a  statement  of*  the  doctrine  which  the  story  is  to 
enforce  or  illustrate,  giving  out  a  text  for  a  sermon,  so  to  speak, 
like  his  grandfathers,  the  Methodist  preachers.  This  text  may 
stand  alone,  as  it  does  in  Beyond  tht  Pale:  "A  man  should, 
whatever  happens,  keep  to  his  own  caste,  race  and  breed.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  wilfully  stepped  beyond  the  safe 
limits  of  decent  everyday  society,  and  paid  for  it  heavily.'-  Or 
Kipling  may  pause  to  expound  and  elaborate  the  text  before 
he  goes  on  to  the  story.  Thrown  Away,  for  example,  begins: 
"To  real'  a  boy  under  ...  the  'sheltered  life  system'  is  not  safe," 
and  this  text  is  followed  by  a  page  or  so  of  disquisition.  This 
manner  of  opening  is  confined  to  the  earlier  stories;  the  majority 
of  the  Plain   Tnhs  begin  in  this  way. 

Very  seldom  does  Kipling  begin  in  the  formal  and  old- 
fashioned  way,  as   [rving  began  Rip   Van    Winkle,  or  Poe,   Tht 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  81 

Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  with  a  description  of  place-setting. '  ~" 
He  does  so  only  when  the  scene  is  structurally  necessary,  an 
organic  part  of  the  story,  as  in  The  House  of  Suddhoo,  a  tale  of 
terror  and  sham  magic,  or  in  A  Wayside  Comedy,  where  the 
tragi-comic  situation  is  largely  the  result  of  the  segregation  of 
the  persons  at  a  lonely  outpost.      He  does  not  begin  with  Time,  — 
except  as  combined  with  Place  in  such  a  story  as  At  the  End  of 
the  Passage,  where  the  terrors  of  the  East  Indian  summer  are 
responsible  for  the  death  of  the  hero.      And  he  does  not  begin  b 
with  the  Social  Group,  unless  the  action  of  the  story  is  in  some 
way  conditioned  by  it. 

His  most  common  opening  is  an  account  of  the  chief  char- 
acter or  characters  of  the  story,  and  of  their  relations  to  one 
another,  an  account,  that  is,  not  of  the  whole  phase  of  life,  but 
merely  of  that  small  part  of  it  with  which  the  story  is  to 
be  concerned.  More  commonly  this  account  of  character  or 
dramatis  personae  takes  the  form  of  direct  description,  or  of  a 
summary  of  their  past  history.  Sometimes,  however,  the  char- , 
acter  is  introduced  in  the  dramatic  way,  by  an  incident  which 
has  no  other  function,  that  is,  which  does  not  carry  forward  the 
action  of  the  story  itself.      Mcintosh  Jellaludin  enters  singing : 

"  'Say  is  it  dawn,  is  it  dusk  in  thy  Bower, 
Thou  whom  I  long  for,  who  longest  for  me? 
Oh,  be  it  night — be  it — ' 

"Here  he  fell  over  a  little  camel-colt  that  was  sleeping  in  the 
Serai  where  the  horse-traders  and  the  best  of  the  blackguards 
from  Central  Asia  live  . . .  When  a  loafer,  and  drunk,  sings  '  The 
Song  of  the  Bower,'  he  must  be  worth  cultivating."  There  at 
once  you  have  the  two  extremes  that  unite  so  strangely  in 
Jellaludin,  and  make  the  story. 


82  KIPLING  THE  8T0BI   WRITES 

Bu1  while,  as  I  have  said,  many  stories  begin  with  an  account 
of  character,  relatively  few  begin  in  this  dramatic  way;  and 
tVw  begin  with  action  which  is  an  integral  part  of  the  plot.  The 
Hill  of  Illusion  must  of  course  begin  in  this  way,  and  so  musl 
tlic  eighl  stories  of  Tht  Gadsbys,  since  these  consist  wholly  of 
dialogue  and  stage  directions.  And  The  Education  of  Otis 
Teen  and  .1  Second  h'atr  Woman  begin  in  this  way,  because 
tiny  are  conveyed  to  the  reader  almost  wholly  through  the  con- 
versations of  Mrs.  Hauksbee  and  Mrs.  Mallowe.  For  tbese 
and  other  apparent  exceptions  there  are  good  reasons:  it  is.  then. 
not  normally  the  way  of  Kipling  to  begin  with  dialogue,  and 
action.  In  this  respect  Without  Benefit  of  CI*  run  is  distinctly 
exceptional. 

Not  uncommonly  he  begins  with  a  fairly  elaborate  explana- 
tion or  summary  of  antecedent  action  or  situation.  But  such 
summaries  arc  always  interesting.  They  are  adorned  with 
concrete,  picturesque,  and  suggestive  detail.  The  Man  Who 
Was,  for  example,  begins  with  a  general  account  of  Dirkovitch 
as  a  typical  Russian.  Abstract  discussion  of  Russian  character 
might  well  be  dull.  Kipling  makes  it  anything  but  dull:  "Le1 
it  be  clearly  understood,"  be  begins,  "that  the  Russian  is  a 
delightful  person  till  he  tucks  in  his  shirt."  This  epigram — 
right  or  wrong  as  to  facts — shocks  the  reader  into  attention  at 
once.  He  is  willing  to  read  a  few  sentences  to  find  out  what 
Kipling  means. 

Now  and  then  it  is  by  a  preliminary  summary  of  the  storj- 
to  come — after  the  manner  of  the  daily  press — or  by  a  descrip- 
tion of  this  story,  or  by  a  hint  as  to  its  nature,  that  Kipling 
catches  the  reader's  eye  and  mind.  Beyond  the  Pale  is  said  to 
be  "the  story  of  a  man  who  wilfully  stepped  beyond  the  safe 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  83 

limits  of  decent  everyday  society,  and  paid  for  it  heavily.  He 
knew  too  much  in  the  first  instance ;  and  he  saw  too  much  in 
the  second.  He  took  too  deep  an  interest  in  native  life ;  but  he 
never  will  do  so  again."  Such  an  introduction,  manifestly,  does 
not  "give  away"  the  point,  or  deprive  the  story  of  unexpected- 
ness. Our  eagerness  to  know  why  "he  will  never  do  so  again," 
tells  for,  not  against  suspense.  The  framed  tales,  naturally, 
begin  with  the  framework;  and  the  frameworks  begin,  as  do 
the  tales  themselves,  in  every  possible  fashion — with  Time  or 
Place  or  Society  or  Character  or  Plot,  in  general  summary,  con- 
crete incident,  or  hint  of  what  is  to  come. 

For  simplicity,  and  in  the  interests  of  scientific  method,  T 
have  been  at  pains  to  devise  these  categories  and  to  make  this 
attempt  to  classify  Kipling's  methods  of  beginning  his  stories. 
But  categories  are  purely  academic  affairs;  they  were  no  con- 
cern of  Kipling  the  artist  in  fiction.  Manifestly  he  did  not 
say  to  himself,  "The  nature  of  this  story  is  such  that  I  can  best 
begin  with  place-setting,  or  with  character,  or  with  a  hint  of 
what  is  to  come."  He  had,  I  imagine,  rather  a  general  im- 
pression of  his  story — not  a  definite  plan — and  when  he  sat 
down  to  write,  the  story  came  with  tremendous  rapidity,  helter- 
skelter,  from  the  end  of  his  pen.  I  scarcely  exaggerate  when  I 
say  that  he  began  with  everything  at  once ;  he  immediately 
flung  a  dozen  oranges  in  the  air,  and  kept  them  all  up  to  the 
last  paragraph.  In  other  words,  while  this  or  that  element  may 
predominate  in  the  introduction,  others  are  always  present. 
Thus  a  certain  incoherence  is  characteristic  of  all  the  more 
elaborate  introductions,  and  now  and  again  one  sympathizes 
with  Ortheris,  when  Mulyaney  was  trying  to  tell  the  story  of 
The  God  from  the  Machine  and  tacked  about  and  about  without 


84  K1PL1SG   THE  SI  oil)     Willi  I  S 

moving  forward:  "  'Mulvaney,  the  dawn's  pisin','  said  Ortheris, 
'an'  we're  qo  nearer  'ome  than  we  was  a1  the  beginnin'.'  ' 
Ilrrr  are  some  of  the  matters  thai  Kipling  (Iimmism's  a1  the  begin- 
ning of  On  Hi'  City  Will!:  character  of  thr  heroine,  social  set- 
ting, history  of  the  heroine,  place-setting,  character  of  the  hero, 
social  setting,  history  of  the  hero,  character  of  the  hero,  prelim- 
inary hint  of  the  story,  social  setting  (relations  of  England  and 
India),  character  of  the  heroine,  place-setting,  social  setting; 
thru  a  dialogue  reveals,  once  more,  social  setting,  character  of 
the  heroine,  character  and  history  of  the  hero;  and  then  follows 
an  account  of  the  character-revealing  habits  of  the  heroine. 

Everybody  knows  that  one  must  write  about  one  thing  at  a 
time,  and  finish  with  that  before  one  goes  on  to  the  next.  If 
one  does  not,  one's  writing  will  Vie  incoherent.  This  passage 
might  be  cited  as  an  example.  But,  after  all,  it  is  the  incoher- 
ence of  genius,  it  comes  from  over-plus  of  imagination  and  sensr 
of  fact,  like  Shakespeare's  mixed  metaphors.  And  somehow 
you  have,  when  you  begin  the  story  itself,  a  sufficient  under- 
standing of  the  situation. 

If  Kipling  begins  his  stories  in  all  possible  ways,  sometimes 
in  all  possible  ways  at  once,  he  'proceeds  in  the  same  fashion. 
If  his  first  step  is  character,  his  second  may  be  text,  or  hint  of 
what  is  to  come,  or  incident  of  the  plot,  or  explanation,  or  com- 
ment :  he  has,  as  I  have  said,  no  settled  habit,  no  definite  plan 
of  attack,  each  story  seems  to  tell  itself,  after  its  own  fashion. 

In  general,  however,  one  seems  to  see  in  Kipling  a  preference 
for  scenes — wherein  something  happens,  over  situations — cross- 
sections  of  the  narrative  wherein  the  action  stands  still.  One 
seems  to  see,  also,  a  certain  preference  for  the  single  scene — the 
proposal  iii  the  dust-storm,  in  False  Dawn,  the  repulse  of  the 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  85 

rioters  in  His  Chance  in  Life,  the  sham  magic  in  The  House  of 
Suddhoo,  the  escape  from  the  coal-mine  in  At  Twenty-Two,  the 
riot  in  the  city  in  On  the  City  Wall.  A  few  have  two  scenes, 
like  the  plotting  against  Mulvaney  and  the  attempted  shooting 
of  O'Hara  in  Black  Jack.  But  one  scene  is  the  rule.  Only  a 
few  of  the  stories  can  be  said  to  consist  mainly  of  a  single  sit- 
uation rather  than  of  a  scene.  The  Madness  of  Private  Ortheris, 
for  example,  in  Plain  Tales,  and  The  Man  Who  Was,  in  Life's 
Handicap,  are  both  noteworthy  pieces  of  concentration.  The  j 
Madness  of  Private  Ortheris  is  a  single  and  highly  elaborated 
situation,  free  from  summary,  and  free  or  almost  free  from 
explanation.  It  traces  the  gradual  coming  on  of  the  nostalgia, 
the  climax  of  the  attack,  the  change  into  civilian  dress,  which  is 
also  the  beginning  of  the  cure,  the  hours  of  suspense  while  Mul- 
vaney and  Kipling  wait  for  Ortheris  alone  by  the  river  to  come 
to  himself,  and  the  happy  conclusion.  The  whole  is  enacted  in 
one  place,  within  a  few  hours,  by  three  persons,  who  represent, 
however,  the  English  army  and  the  vicissitudes  of  its  life_in 
India.  The  Man  Who  Was  is  nearly  twice  as  long,  more  sig- 
nificant,  more  dramatic,  but  not  so  completely  translated  into 
terms  of  concrete  narrative.  It  is  the  work  of  Kipling  the 
patriot,  the  imperialist,  inspired  by  hatred  of  Russia,  by  con- 
sciousness of  the  conflict  of  Russian  and  English  interests  in  the 
Far  East.  It  has  certain  dramatic  incidents  more  stirring 
than  anything  in  The  Madness  of  Private  Ortheris:  the  cere- 
monial drinking  of  the  Queen's  health,  a  traditional  rite  of  the 
White  Hussars;  the  speech  of  Hira  Singh,  the  native  officer, 
concluding,  "But  if  by  the  will  of  God  there  arises  any  other 
game  which  is  not  the  polo  game,  then  be  assured,  Colonel  Sahib 
and  officers,  that  we  will  play  it  out  side  by  side,  though  they," 


86  Kiri.IXt,    i  in    STOBI   WBIT1  l: 

again  his  eye  sought  Dirkovitch,  "though  they,  I  say,  have  fifty 

ponies  tn  Din'  one  horse" ;  the  si  mi  heard  outside  and  the  entrance 
of  the  limp  heap  of  rags  upheld  by  three  soldiers;  his  gradual 
and  unconscious  self-revelation  of  identity,  and  of  the  Bad  thai 
lie  had  Keen  a  Russian  prisoner.  It  is  a  more  stirring  and  sig- 
nifieant  situation  than  the  Madness  of  Ortheris,  but  it  is  prefaced 
by  four  pages  of  summary  and  explanation,  giving  an  account  of 
Dirkovitch,  the  Russian  officer,  his  character  and  his  history, 
of  the  genera]  character  of  the  White  Hussars,  his  hosts  at  din- 
ner, and  of  the  theft  of  carbines  from  the  regiment  by  the 
Pathans  across  the  river.  And  it  is  concluded  by  the  suggestive 
incident  of  the  departure  of  Dirkovitch.  Tht  str<n>(/<  Bide  of 
Marrowbu  Jukeq  is  a  less  certain  instance  of  single  situation. 
Through  fifteen  pages,  however,  he  is  imprisoned  in  the  sand 
pit,  in  the  village  of  the  living  dead;  and  there  seems  no  possi- 
bility of  escape.  And  though  he  is  intensely  active  all  the  time, 
his  activity  is  that  of  the  squirrel  in  the  cage;  it  leads  to  nothing; 
and  his  rescue,  in  the  end,  comes  from  without.  These  are 
stories  of  a  single  situation;  they  are  not  numerous;  and  stories 
of  more  than  one  situation  are  still  fewer.  The  story  of  The 
Man  Who  Would  hi  King,  prefaced  by  the  incidents  of  Kipling's 
first  meetings,  on  railway  trains,  with  the  two  adventurers,  is 
told  in  two  situations  in  the  newspaper  office,  one  before,  one 
after,  the  great  adventure;  but  the  second  of  these  is  rather 
frame  for  story  than  story  proper.  The  best  example  of  the 
two-situation  story  is  At  the  End  of  the  Passage,  with  its  two 
Sunday  gatherings  of  the  friends,  one  before,  the  other  after, 
Hummil's  death,  in  The  Education  of  Otis  Yecre  it  is  possible 
to  distinguish  as  many  as  four  distinct  situations.  In  this  re- 
spect, also,  then.  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  is  exceptional.      I 


PLOTS  AND  THEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  87 

do  not  think  that  its  series  of  seven  situations  strung  on  a  thread 
of  summary  can  be  paralleled  from  the  true  short-stories  of 
Kipling's  early  work. 

However,  a  number  of  these  stories  do  consist  mainly  of  a 
series  of  incidents,  of  little  happenings,  that  is,  too  brief  and 
too  slightly  elaborated  to  be  regarded  either  as  situations  or  as 
scenes.  But  the  line  between  incident  and  scene  or  situation, 
is  one  of  the  many  arbitrary  lines  which  have  to  be  drawn, 
and  the  distinction,  though  in  general  a  useful  one,  is  often  doubt- 
ful in  individual  cases.  In  Kidnapped,  clearby  enough,  the 
narrative  is  intentionallv  confined  to  minor  incidents,  from 
which  we  are  to  infer  the  main  action  of  the  story.  In  Bertran 
and  Bimi  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  lack  of  elaboration.  In 
Beyond  the  Pale,  too,  there  is  little  elaboration,  but  here  one 
can  not  be  so  certain.  In  general,  incidents — little,  detached 
bits  of  action,  not  organized  into  scenes,  but  floating  loose,  so 
to  speak,  in  a  stream  of  summary — are  extremely  common  in 
Kipling's  stories.  It  is  largely  by  this  means  that  Carnehan, 
the  companion  of  the  man  who  would  be  king,  and  Learoyd,  in 
(  On  Greenhow  II ill,  tell  their  tales. 

I  have  noted  Kidnapped  as  an  instance  of  the  suggestive 
method :  the  incidents  narrated  are  not  those  of  the  real  storv, 
that  we  must  construct  for  ourselves.  Kipling  was  to  do  later 
great  things  with  this  method,  but  in  this  early  period  there 
are  few  instances  of  it;  one  is  His  Majesty  the  King,  where  we 
read  much  more  than  the  child  hero  into  the  incidents  which  he 
observes.  However,  Kipling  does  not  venture  to  let  these  sug- 
gestions stand  alone.  In  Kidnapped  his  title  clears  away  any 
possible  doubt ;  in  His  Majesty  the  King  he  inserts  a  needless 
explanation.      In  To  Be  Filed  for  Reference,  the  powerful  sug- 


88  KIPLING   THE   ST0B1    WRITES 

gestion  of  the  last  words  of  the  drunkard  and  Loafer  who  was 
once  an  Oxford  man— "Not  guilty,  my  Lord!"  is.  however, 
allowed  to  stand  alone,  or  almosl  alone;  Eor  even  here  Kipling 

adds,  lest  we  miss  the  point:  "Perhaps  Ins  last  sentence  in  life 
told  what  Mcintosh  had  once  gone  through." 

The  ends  of  Kipling's  stories  are  not  less  various  than  the 

beginnings.     The  earlier  i s  are  Likely  to  close  with  a  commenl 

of  his  own,  sometimes  recurring  to  his  opening  texl  with  a 
triumphant  Q.  E.  D.  Thus  Kidnapped  begins  with  a  jocose 
plea  for  a  Governmental  Matrimonial  Bureau,  "with  a  Jury  of 
Matrons,  a  Judge  of  the  Chief  Court,  a  Senior  Chaplain,  and 
an  Awful  "Warning,  in  the  shape  of  a  love-match  that  lias  gone 
wrong,  chained  to  the  trees  in  the  courtyard."  After  making 
it  apparent  that  Peythroppe  had  to  be  kidnapped  for  six  weeks 
to  prevent  a  misalliance  it  concludes:  "But  just  think  how 
much  trouble  and  expense  .  .  .  might  have  been  saved  by  a  prop- 
erly conducted  Matrimonial  Department...."  In  other  cases 
Kipling's  concluding  remark  is  mere  comment  on  the  story 
as  story:  "no  one  will  believe,"  he  says,  "a  rather  unpleasant 
story  [The  Mark  of  the  Beast],  and  it  is  well  known  to  every 
right-minded  man  that  the  gods  of  the  heathen  are  stone  and 
brass,  and  any  attempt  to  deal  with  them  otherwise  is  justly 
condemned.'  Occasionally  this  critical  comment  is  entrusted 
to  one  of  the  persons  of  the  story  or  of  the  framework — to  Mul- 
vaney,  for  example,  as  in  The  Daughter  of  the  Regiment,  or  to 
Mrs.  Hauksbee,  as  in  A  Second  Rate  Woman,  or  to  the  English 
onlookers,  as  in  At  Twenty-Two.  Sometimes  the  close  explains 
— somewhat  weakly,  indeed — how  it  was  possible  that  certain 
events  should  have  taken  place.  Thus  Marrowbie  Jukes  ac- 
counts for  his  escape:  "It  seems  that  [Dunoo,  my  dog-boy]  had 


1 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  89 

tracked  Pornic's  footprints  fourteen  miles  across  the  sands  to 
the  crater ;...  had  taken  one  of  niy  ponies  and  a  couple  of 
punkah  ropes,  returned  to  the  crater,  and  hauled  me  out  as  I  have 
described."  Suggestive  of  medieval  narrative,  particularly  of 
the  habit  of  the  fabliau,  is  the  close  which  sums  up  the  situation - 
resulting  from  the  story.  Thus  Kipling  tells  us  how,  as  the 
result  of  his  presence  in  the  house  of  Suddhoo,  he  was  open 
to  the  charge  of  aiding  and  abetting  in  obtaining  money  under 
false  pretences.  Suggestive  of  the  fairy-tale,  "lived  happily 
ever  after,"  are  those  conclusions  which  sum  up  the  lives  of 
the  persons  after  the  close  of  the  story :  "  In  the  end,  Strickland 
and  Miss  Youghal  were  married,  on  the  strict  understanding  that 
Strickland  should  drop  his  old  ways.  .  .  .  He  is  forgetting  the 
slang  and  the  beggar's  cant,  and  the  marks,  and  the  signs,  and 
the  drift  of  the  under-currents.  . .  .  But  he  fills  in  his  Depart- 
mental returns  beautifully."  These  last  two  types  of  conclu- 
sion, which  represent  the  story  as  resulting  in  a  situation  or  in 
a  way  of  life  which  still  continues,  have  a  certain  value :  they 
add  distinctly  to  the  air  of  reality  of  the  story  as  a  whole.  But 
for  the  rest  it  will  be  manifest  that  Kipling's  conclusions  of  the 
types  thus  far  discussed  are  not  particularly  impressive ;  he  does 
not  aim  to  end  with  words  that  deserve  distinction  as  an  organic 
part  of  the  story;  nor  is  it  his  habit  to  attempt  to  shock  us 
with  a  sudden  surprise  or  with  an  epigram  at  the  close,  after 
the  fashion  of  Maupassant  or  0.  Henry.  There  is  something 
akin  to  this  trick,  however,  in  the  later  stories  of  this  first  period, 
a  suggestive  incident  or  bit  of  dialogue  which  accomplishes, " 
much  more  powerfully  than  direct  statement,  something  more 
than  the  comment  or  the  summary  of  resulting  situation.  Ad- 
mirable instances  are  to  be  found  in  On  the  City  Wall,  At  the 


KIPLING    THE  8T0B1     R  EITSB 

Pit's  l/"*///'.  Only  a  Subaltern,  Th>  Man  Who  Would  &<  King, 
J I  s  Majesty  tin  King,  1 1>>  Man  Who  Was,  and  7/"  Return  of 
Imray.  Bui  perhaps  the  mosl  telling  one  occurs  in  Bertran  and 
Bimi,  the  story  told  bj  Hans  Breitmann,  the  German  scientist, 
of  the  friend  who  had  a  pel  orang-outang.  The  beasl  was  ex- 
tremely jealous.  <  me  day  he  lefl  it  alone  wit  h  bis  wife,  and, 
when  he  returned,  neither  wife  nor  orang-outang  answered  his 

call.       1 1  is  wife's  door  was  lurked. 

••I    broke   down   der   d ■   mit    mj    Bhoulder, "    said    Breitmann,   "und 

der  thatch  of  der  roof  was  torn  into  a  great  hole,  and  der  sun  came  in  apon 
der  floor,  llai'  you  ever  Been  paper  in  der  waste  basket  or  cards  at  whist 
on  >lcr  table  Bcatteredf  Dere  was  no  wife  dot  could  be  Been....  I  looked 
at  dese  things  and  I  was  very  sick;  but  Bertran  looked  a  liddle  longer 
at  what  was  apon  der  floor  und  der  walls,  und  der  hole  iii  der  thatch.  Den 
he  pegan  to  laugh,  soft  und  low,  and  I  knew  und  thank  (iott  dot  he  was 
mad.  .  .  . 

After  ten  days  Bimi,  the  ape.  came  back  and  Bertran  gave  him 
sangaree  until  he  was  drunk  and  stupid,  and  then  .  .  . 

"Bertran  he  kill  him  mit  his  hands,  und  I  go  for  «'i  walk  upon  der  beach. 
It  was  Bertran 'a  own  piziness.  When  I  come  bach  der  u\«-  he  was  dead, 
und  Bertran  he  was  dying  abofe  him;  but  still  he  laughed  liddle  und  low 
und   he  was  quite  content. " 

"But  why  in  the  world  didn't  you  help  Bertran  instead  of  letting  him 
be  killed.""   I  asked, 

"My  friend,"  said  Hans, .  .  .  "  it  was  not  nice  even  to  mineself  dot  I 
should  live  after  I  haf  seen  dot  room  mit  der  hole  in  der  thatch.  Und 
Bertran,  he  was  her  husband." 

This,  if  you  will,  is  a  somewhat  crude  sensationalism.  Bu1 
it  is  the  same  art  that  gave  us  the  far  more  subtle  visit  of  Holden 
to  his  ruined  borne  at  the  end  of  Without  li<>ufit  of  Clergy. 
In  each  ease  the  full  emotional  value  of  the  story  is  impressively 
borne  in  upon  us  by  the  closing  incident. 


PLOTS  AND  THE  IP  SIGNIFICANCE  91 

What  remains  to  be  said  in  regard  to  structure  can  perhaps 
be  summed  up  by  a  generalization  to  the  effect  that  while  Kip- 
ling is  not  a  severely  impersonal  or  dramatic  author,  he  can  upon 
occasion  make  effective  use  of.  the  dramatic  and  impersonal 
methods.  As  we  have  already  seen,  his  narrative  is,  normally, 
highly  personalized;  he  tells  the  story  himself,  as  he  saw  it,  or 
makes  one  of  an  audience  to  whom  it  is  told  by  an  eyewitness 
of  it  or  actor  in  it ;  and  his  comments  on  it  are  not  confined  to 
beginning  or  end.  He  is  continually  entering  in  his  own  person 
to  admonish,  to  explain,  to  take  sides.  Furthermore,  he  puts  us 
in  possession  of  necessary  information  in  regard  to  action  ante- 
cedent to  the  story,  or  occurring  in  the  early  part  of  it,  by  means 
of  the  nightly  undramatic  method  of  summary;  and  he  uses 
summary  freely  also  for  purposes  of  characterization.  Again, 
he  has  no  prejudice  against  indirect  discourse — his  version  of 
the  speeches,  instead  of  the  speeches  themselves  after  the  fashion 
of  drama.  On  the  other  hand,  his  summaries  are  adorned  with 
concrete,  dramatic  and  picturesque  touches  which  completely 
destroy  dull  barrenness.  And  if  he  uses  indirect  discourse,  he 
makes  liberal  use  of  dialogue  as  well.  It  must  be  admitted, 
indeed,  that  Kipling  often  uses  dialogue  in  brief  conversations 
less  as  an  organic  and  necessary  part  of  his  narrative,  than  as 
illustration  or  enforcement  of  some  summary  of  events  or  of 
some  history  of  a  character.  There  are  instances  of  this  in 
Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  and  in  On  the  City  Wall.  But,  for 
the  other  extreme,  there  are  the  eight  stories  of  The  Gadsbys  and 
The  Hill  of  Illusion,  where  tales  are  told  and  characters  revealed 
wholly  by  dialogue  and  stage  direction,  that  is,  where  the  form 
closely  approximates  that  of  the  drama  itself.  With  this  limi- 
tation, however,   that,   in   The   Gadsbys  at  least,   comment   and 


92  KIPLING   i  ill    sun;)    w  i;i  1 1  i; 

explanation  are  freely  introduced,  being  pu1  into  the  mouths 
of  characters  the  men  al  the  club  who  exist  for  oo  other  pur 
pose.  I  argely  by  means  of  a  similar  sorl  of  running  comment, 
by  means  of  talk  aboul  what  has  happened  and  what  is  going 
to  happen,  are  told  the  two  stories  in  which  .Mrs.  Eauksbee  and 
her  friend  Mrs.  Mallowe  are  concerned  Tin  Education  of  Otis 
Teen  and  .1  Second  Rati  Woman.  Both  are  extremely  interest- 
ing experiments  in  method.  In  the  other  stories,  generally, 
dialogue  is  less  common,  Kipling  being  too  impatient,  too  pressed 
for  time  and  space,  to  work  out  the  subtle  translation  of  events 
and  characters  into  words  and  gestures.  And  yet — for  you 
ran  say  nothing  about  Kipling's  technique  without  Endless  modi- 
fication and  exception— and  yet  it  is  largely  by  means  of  dia- 
logue that  his  best  characterization  is  accomplished.  It  is  thus, 
for  example,  that  the  "three  musketeers"  are  differentiated — 
primarily  and  most  obviously  by  dialect,  though  by  the  content 
of  their  speeches  as  well.  Careful  critics  have  found  errors  in 
Mulvaney's  brogue,  in  Ortheris's  cockney,  and  Learoyd's  fork- 
shire  dialect;  indeed  it  is  obvious  to  any  reader  that  Kipling 
is  not  consistent,  that  Riulvaney,  for  example,  does  not  turn  all 
his  ee's  into  a's — not  all  Ins  queens  are  quanes.  Bui  Kipling 
was  not  writing  for  phoneticians:  and  he  does  always  accomplish 

what   lie  sets  out  to  do:  no  one  can  mistake  a  sp -h  of  one  of 

the  soldiers  three  for  that  of  one  of  the  others.  Writers  of 
dialect  do  not  often  go  further  than  this.  There  is  no  more 
famous  dialect  literature  than  the  Mans  Breitmann  Ballads; 
Kipling  knew  and  loved  them  ;  lie  calls  his  <  German  scienl  ist  I  lans 
Breitmann,  and  now  and  again  he  quotes  some  of  the  verses. 
A  glance  at  these  is  enough  to  convince  the  most  unobservant 
that    no    German    ever    spoke    English,    or    American,    in    this 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  93 

fashion;  thus  between  the  language  of  Kipling's  Hans  Breit- 
mann  and  the  pretended  Pennsylvania  Dutch  of  the  original, 
the  Hans  Breitmann  of  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  there  is  not 
much  to  choose.  Yet  both  are  effective,  both  are  comic,  and 
both  serve,  like  the  Yorkshire,  Cockney,  and  Irish  brogue,  to 
differentiate  character  types.  But,  as  I  have  said,  Kipling  does 
not  depend  on  pronunciation  alone;  matter  as  well  as  manner 
is  characteristic.  In  On  Grecnhow  Hill,  for  example,  when 
Learoyd  tells  his  love  story  and  Mulvaney  and  Ortheris  break 
in  with  characteristic  comments,  it  is  not  dialect,  it  is  rather  the 
sense  and  the  emotional  coloring  of  what  they  say  that  reveal 
the  humorous  and  tender-hearted  Irishman,  the  solemn  and 
sentimental  Yorkshireman,  the  matter-of-fact  and  cynical  Cock- 
ney. Here  again,  however,  the  critics  object  that  there  is 
sometimes  too  much  Kipling,  too  little  soldier  in  these  speeches. 
And  the  objection  is  sound  enough.  You  can  account  for 
Mulvaney 's  "Discourse,  Don  Juan!  The  a-moors  av  Lotharius 
Learoyd!" — you  can  account  for  Mulvaney 's  literary  allusions 
on  the  basis  of  his  experience  in  Silver's  Theatre  in  Dublin,  of 
which  he  gives  an  amusing  description  in  The  Courting  of 
Dinah  Shadd.  And  you  can  account  for  Ortheris 's  misquota- 
tion of  Macaulay's  Horatius  on  the  basis  of  his  common-school 
education.  But  there  remains  much  that  you  can  not  account 
for.  Learoyd,  for  example,  might  well  say,  "You  could  tell 
Greenhow  Hill  folk  by  the  red-apple  colour  o'  their  cheeks  an' 
nose-tips"  ;  bat  he  could  hardly  add,  "and  their  blue  eyes,  driven 
into  pin-points  by  the  wind."  And  Ortheris 's  simile — -"Sort 
o'  mad  country.  Like  a  grate  when  the  fire's  put  out  by  the 
sun" — bespeaks  rather  the  observant  man  of  letters  than  the 
cockney  private.     But  for  all  this,  style  and  matter,  like  dialect, 


'.i  l  KIP1  I  VG   THE  STOm    H  BITES 

Berve  to  differentiate  and  establish  the  types.     Only  the  critical 
academic  reader  is  offended,  and  be  does  qo1  count. 

I  3ture  and  minor  incidenl  serve  the  same  purpose.  Words 
and  action  are  exactly  equivalent  in  the  welcome  home  of  Mul- 
vanej  after  his  incarnation:  "'You  damned  fool!'  said  they, 
and  severally  pounded  him  with  their  lists."  Again,  for  the 
gestures  characteristic  of  the  type:  "Ortheris  suddenly  rose  to 
Ins  knees,  his  rifle  at  Ins  shoulder,  and  peered  across  the  valley 
in  the  clear  afternoon  light.  His  chin  cuddled  the  stock,  and 
there  was  a  twitching  of  the  muscles  of  the  right  cheek  as  he 
sighted;  Private  Stanley  Ortheris  was  engaged  on  his  business." 
These  professional  gestures,  the  gestures  which  establish  the 
type,  have  a  certain  charm  of  their  own,  the  charm  of  tin-  char- 
acteristic and  specific,  which  is  not  lessened  by  the  fad  that  to 
the  uninitiated  they  are  not  always  wholly  intelligible.  In 
Black  Jack  Mulvaney  counters  the  plot  againsl  O'Hara  and 
himself  by  removing  the  bullel  from  the  cartridge  and  so  tam- 
pering with  his  rifle  that  it  injures  the  would-be  murderer.  In 
his  own  words  i  without  the  dialect)  :  '"Sure  and  true,  there  was 
a  cartridge  gone  from  my  pouch  and  lying  snug  in  my  rifle.  -  T 
was  hot  with  rage  against  them  all,  and  I  worried  the  bullet 
out  with  my  teeth  as  fast  as  I  could.  ...  Then  I  took  my  boot 
and  the  cleaning-rod  and  knocked  out  the  pin  of  the  falling- 
block.  Oh,  'twas  music  when  that  pin  rolled  on  the  floor.  I 
put  it  into  my  pouch  and  stuck  a  dab  of  dirt  on  the  holes  in  the 
plate,  putting  the  falling  block  back."  In  a  general  way.  of 
course,  any  reader  can  make  out  what  Mulvaney  did.  Bu1 
Kipling,  in  his  search  for  the  technically  exact  and  the  pictur- 
esque word,  the  slang  or  jargon  of  the  class  he  is  depicting,  may 
go   much    further  than   this  and   become  wholly   unintelligible  to 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  9o 

the  normal  reader.  "Never,  so  long  as  a  tonga  buckets  down 
the  Solon  dip  .  .  .  will  there  be  such  a  genius  as  Mrs.  Hauksbee. ' ' 
Evidently  it  is,  somewhere,  a  well-known  fact  that  the  tonga  will 
continue  for  many  years,  or  centuries,  to  bucket  down  the  Solon 
dip,  and  doubtless  that  is  all  we  need  to  know.  Moreover,  there 
is  local  color  in  these  words,  even  though  we  do  not  understand 
them.  We  have  a  pleasant  sense  of  being  in  India  (since  Kip- 
ling says  that  it  is  India)  just  as  a  realization  of  the  fact  that 
one  is  in  Paris  is  increased  by  the  sounds  of  an  unintelligible 
language  about  one,  which  one  assumes  to  be  French.  But 
Kipling  can  be  even  less  intelligible :  "If  a  man  wants  your 
money,  he  ought  to  ask  for  it,  or  send  round  a  subscription-list, 
instead  of  juggling  about  the  country,  with  an  Australian  lar- 
rikin ;  a  '  brumby, '  with  as  much  breed  as  the  boy ;  a  brace  of 
chumars  in  gold-laced  caps;  three  or  four  ckk  a -ponies  with 
hogged  manes,  and  a  switch-tailed  demirep  of  a  mare  called 
Arab  because  she  has  a  kink  in  her  flag."  From  all  this  you 
get  nothing  more  than  a  faint  sense  of  an  unfamiliar  and  dis- 
reputable world — apparently  the  world  of  the  race-track — much 
the  kind  of  impression  you  would  get  from  a  conversation  on  > 
the  same  subject  overheard  in  a  smoking-car.  Here,  then,  is 
another  of  the  means  by  which  Kipling  contrives  to  convey  the 
impression  of  reality — and  reality,  be  it  remembered,  is  often 
unintelligible — the  means  of  the  specific  and  differencing  lan- 
guage of  human  types  and  classes,  the  jargon  of  trades  or  pro- 
fessions. This  habit  grows,  and  leads  in  the  later  period,  to 
stories  that  are  wholly,  or  almost  wholly,  unintelligible.  This 
is  perhaps  the  final  outcome  of  the  dramatic  or  objective  method. 
Words  and  gestures  are  given :  the  real  words,  so  to  speak,  of 
conversations  overheard,  mere  unintelligible  fragments  of  con- 


96  KIPLING   THE  ST0B1     WBITEB 

versations,  or  conversations  in  slang,  jargon,  technical  terms; 
ami  real  gestures,  gestures  of  the  shop  or  the  game,  technical 
gestures,  meaningless  to  the  uninitiated.  Neither  words  nor 
gestures  are  selected  or  explained.  Without  help  <>i*  any  kind 
from  the  author,  the  reader  has  to  draw  his  own  inferences, 
construd  the  story  for  himself.  He  is  thus  in  the  position  of 
one  who  watches  a  street  incident  in  a  foreign  city  where  he 
knows  but  little  of  the  language  and  nothing  of  the  customs 
involved.  Kipling,  then,  while  he  commonly  employed  the  non- 
dramatic  methods — summary,  explanation,  comment,  indirect 
discourse,  all  the  methods  that  remind  you  that  there  is  an 
author  behind  the  story — could,  if  he  would,  employ  tin-  other 
methods — the  dramatic,  objective,  unexplained  speech  and  ges- 
ture and  minor  incident — even  to  the  point  of  unintelligibilty. 
Similarly,  though  it  was  not  ordinarily  his  habit  to  write 
the  beginning  and  middle  of  his  stories  with  an  intense  con- 
sciousness of  the  end,  he  could  upon  occasion — when  it  happened 
to  suit  his  purpose,  or  when  he  happened  to  be  in  the  mood  to 
take  the  trouble — he  could  prepare,  foreshadow,  anticipate  with 
no  mean  skill.  There  are  some  effective  touches  in  this  way  in 
Beyond  the  Pale  and  in  At  the  Pit's  Mouth;  but  examples  are 
to  be  found  mainly  in  the  last  volume  of  this  period,  in  Life's 
Handicap,  particularly  in  the  later  stories  of  the  volume,  the 
stories  of  mystery  and  terror.  We  have  already  studied  the 
hints  and  suggestions  which  prepare  the  way  for  the  death  of 
llummil  in  At  the  End  of  the  P-assaqej,  for  the  transformation 
of  Fleete  in  Th<  Mark  of  the  Beast,  for  the  return  of  Imray, 
in  the  story  of  that  name.  We  may  add  the  preparation  for 
the  destruction  of  Bertran's  wife  by  the  ape  in  Bertran  and 
Bimi.      Y<t  there  is  no  great  subtlety  in  his  method.      It  cannot 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  97 

be  for  a  moment  compared  with  Poe's  intricate  preparation  for 
The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  or,  to  cite  another  orang- 
outang- story,  for  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue — "a  tale  of 
ratiocination,"  Poe  called  it,  and  ratiocination  was  not  in  Kip- 
ling's way.  Far  less  can  Kipling's  method  be  compared  with 
the  still  more  complete,  subtle,  and  painstaking  preparation  in 
Merimee's  Venus  of  Ille,  which,  like  Bertram  and  Bimi  is  told 
by  a  savant  and  involves  death  caused  by  a  jealous  monster. 
And,  as  I  have  said,  Kipling  seldom  employs  this  method ;  while, 
I  think  it  is  safe  to  say,  Merimee  and  Poe  always  employed  it. 
Intellectual  grasp  of  the  story  as  a  whole,  organic  relation  of 
part  to  part,  a  strong  point  with  these  authors,  is  by  no  means 
a  specialty  of  Kipling's. 

There  remains,  for  structure,  the  matter  of  the  Unities. 
These,  for  the  most  part,  Kipling  happens  to  observe.  Most 
of  these  stories  require  a  very  brief  time  for  their  action ;  and 
when  a  longer  time  is  necessary  it  is  treated  in  a  series  of  sig- 
nificant moments  with  brief  summary  of  what  intervenes. 
Changes  of  place  never  stand  in  the  way  of  our  appreciation. 
The  social  group  is  normally  small,  clear  cut,  organic,  unified 
by  characteristics  which  difference  it  from  other  groups.  The 
number  of  persons  concerned  in  the  action  is  invariably  small, 
usually  not  more  than  one  or  two.  The  action  is  simple,  single, 
easily  grasped.  Thanks,  doubtless,  to  the  Pioneer  and  the  Civil 
and  Military  Gazette,  Kipling  learned  to  "train  the  leading 
shoot,  break  off  the  suckers."  But  it  was  just  in  a  newspaper 
office  that  he  could  not  learn  the  other,  more  subtle,  and  no 
less  significant  unity,  the  unity  of  tone  or  impression.  His 
lighter  stories,  the  stories  of  satire  or  farce  or  humor,  it  is  true, 
leave  little  to  be  desired  in  this  wav.      If  there  is  sometimes — 


98  KIP1  I  \'<    THE  8T0R1    WRITER 

or  often  a  note  of  brutality  or  cruelty,  Like  the  mingling  of 
Laughter  and  slaughter  in  77"  Taking  of  Lungtungpen,  this  is 
mi  more  than  a  carrying  on  of  the  fabliau  tradition,  the  tradition 
of  certain  phases  of  Chaucer  and  of  Fielding,  h  may  shock 
some  readers;  it  implies,  however,  rather  persistence  of  the  comic 
point  of  view  than  lack  of  unity  of  impression.  When  we  turn. 
however,  to  the  more  serious  stories,  stories  of  mystery  or  terror 
or  pathos  or  romantic  love,  it  appears  thai  Kipling  was  tem- 
peramentally incapable  of  holding  the  proper  level  of  tone  or 
impression  or  style.  In  dealing  with  these  stories  of  the  early 
period  we  have  already  noted  the  curious  returns  to  prose,  the 
strange  false  connotations,  by  means  of  which  Kipling  contrives 
to  belittle  his  story  while  he  tells  it.  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy 
would  be  a  better  story  without  the  anecdote  of  the  Member 
for  Lower  Tooting,  without  the  bitter  talk  of  the  English 
officials  in  regard  to  the  home  ignorance  of  Indian  conditions, 
and  without  the  cynical,  "There  won't  be  much  leave  this  year, 
but  there  ought  to  be  a  great  deal  of  promotion."  And  the 
effect  of  sucli  an  admirable  story  as  The  Man  ~\Yho  Was  is  for 
the  moment  destroyed  by  passages  in  the  description  of  the 
White  Hussars:  "And  indeed  they  were  a  regiment  to  be  ad- 
mired. When  Lady  Durgan,  widow  of  the  late  Sir  John  Durgan, 
arrived  in  their  station,  and  after  a  short  time  had  been 
proposed  to  by  every  single  man  at  mess,  she  put  the  public 
sentiment  very  neatly  when  she  explained  that  they  were  all 
so  nice  that  unless  she  could  marry  them  all,  including  the 
colonel  and  some  majors  already  married,  she  was  not  going 
to  content  herself  with  one  hussar."  The  affairs  of  Lady  Dur- 
gan have  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  Man  Who  Was,  and 
it  does  not  matter  in  the  least  whether  she  married   into   his 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  99 

regiment  or  not.  But  one's  discomfort  in  reading  such  a  para- 
graph as  this  is  less  due  to  the  offence  against  plot-unity  than 
to  the  offence  against  unity  of  tone.  This  manner,  the  cheaply 
clever  manner  of  the  society  column  of  an  American  newspaper, 
has  no  place  in  a  story  of  the  dignity,  mystery,  and  pathos  of 
The  Man  Who  Wa£,  Few  of  Kipling's  sins  of  this  kind  are  of 
paragraph  length ;  most  of  them  are  confined  to  the  jarring  word 
or  phrase ;  but  in  this  way  every  serious  story  is  marred.  It  is 
the  most  serious  defect  in  the  whole  range  of  Kipling's  technique. 

It  may  be  accounted  for,  not  wholly  but  in  part,  as  a  phase 
of  the  personal  tendency  in  his  work,  which  results,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  the  continual  thrusting-in  of  his  own  personality,  his 
own  views,  in  the  taking  sides,  the  admonitions,  and  the  com- 
ments. There  is,  in  this  same  story,  a  characteristic  jarring 
sentence  which  is  clearly  of  this  type.  They  drank  the  Queen's 
health,  "upon  whose  pay  they  were  falsely  supposed  to  settle 
their  mess-bills."  That  is,  I  suppose,  as  much  as  to  say,  English 
officers  are  shamefully  underpaid.  Kipling  thus  goes  out  of 
his  way  to  create  an  opportunity  to  introduce  a  comment  on  life. 
For  he  is  always  a  critic  of  life,  always  in  this  sense  moralizing. 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  his  work. 

A  general  statement  to  the  contrary  effect,  by  an  early 
French  critic10  of  The  Light  that  Failed,  gave  rise  by  way  of 
answer  to  what  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  best  comment  on  Kip- 
ling as  moralist.  It  is  an  article  in  the  Quarterly  Review:  "Of 
a  moral  that  can  be  separated  as  with  a  knife  from  the  writings 
whether  of  Mr.  Kipling  or  of  Mr.  Bret  Harte,  it  would  be  nearly 
always  absurd  to  speak;  nor  is  any  story-teller  who  knows  his 
art  at  all  likely  to  divide  the  soul  from  the  body  of  his  narrative 


10  Bentzon :    ' '  — II  f aut  bien   dire  que  Eudyard  Kipling,  pas  plus   que 
Bret  Harte,  ne  met  le  moindre  grain  de  moral  dans  ce  qu  'il  ecrit. ' ' 


100  KIPLING  THE  STOBY   WRITER 

in  this  clumsy  fashion.  Bui  in  the  only  sound  sense  there 
cannol  be  ;i  story  worth  listening  to  in  which  the  moral  elemenl 

is   not    present,   whether  as   light    or  as  shade,   and    howsoever    it 

betrays  itself,  in  pathos  or  indignation.  .  .  .  .More  plausible  would 
be  the  charge  thai  h<'  is  often  disposed  to  enforce  the  wrong 
moral;  thai  he  takes  sides  againsl  the  morality  which  is  received 
among  his  countrymen  (at  all  events  while  they  sit  in  church), 
and  is  consequently  as  little  indifferent  to  these  things  as  the 
anarchist  who  blows  up  a  barracks  is  indifferenl  to  the  power 
of  ihc  Stale  which  he  aims  at  annihilating." 

J.  .M.  Barrie,  in  an  earlier  review,  seems  to  think  that  Kip- 
ling owed  Ids  first  success,  if  not  to  his  attack  on  received  or 
traditional  morality,  at  least  to  his  preoccupation  with  immoral 
situations.  But  (dearly  Mr.  Barrie  goes  too  far  when  he  says: 
"From  the  first  only  the  risky  subjects  seem  to  have  attracted 
.Mr.  Kipling.  He  began  by  dancing  on  ground  that  most 
novelists  look  long  at  before  they  adventure  a  foot.  .  .  .  He  was 
in  search  of  the  devil  (his  only  hero  so  far)  that  is  in  all  of 
us...."  Kipling's  aim,  Mr.  Barrie  further  explains,  is  not 
the  representation  of  Anglo-Indian  life  as  it  is.  "Mr.  Kip- 
ling," he  says,  "warns  us  against  this  assumption.  In  the 
preface  to  one  of  his  books.  ...  he  'assures  the  ill-informed  that 
India  is  not  entirely  inhabited  by  men  and  women  playing  tennis 
with  the  Seventh  Commandment.'*  Nor,  one  might  venture 
to  add,  do  Kipling's  stories  a.s  a  matter  of  fact  make  it  appear 
so;  nor  was  he  attracted  only  by  risky  subjects;  nor  was  ''the 
devil  that  is  in  all  of  us"  his  only  hero  up  to  1891 — the  date 
of  Barrie 's  review. 

A  certain  harshness  or  bitterness  of  tone,  a  certain  cynicism, 
has,  of  course,  to  be  admitted.      It  is,  perhaps,  merely  the  eyni- 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  101 

cism  of  youth,  delighting  in  the  discovery  that  the  persons  set 
over  it  in  authority,  whose  business  it  has  been  to  correct  faults, 
are  themselves  not  faultless.  And  it  may  be  that  in  Kipling's 
case,  this  youthful  cynicism  was  sharpened  by  experiences  like 
those  which  he  outlines  in  Baa  Baa  Black  Sheep.  It  must  be 
admitted,  too,  that  Kipling's  moralizing  has  no  very  great  depth. 
He  is  not  seeking,  after  the  manner  of  a  philosopher,  a  meta- 
physical basis  for  a  science  of  conduct.  Much  of  his  moralizing 
is,  indeed,  only  a  kind  of  generalized  gossip,  a  discussion  of 
conduct  with  illustrative  stories,  shrewd  comments  on  life  by 
amateurs  in  the  art  of  living,  like  his  own  creatures  Mrs.  Hanks- 
bee  or  Mulvaney,  or  the  shop  talk  of  busy  and  effective  men. 
In  none  of  his  opinions,  sound  as  these  often  are,  in  none  of  his 
flashes  of  insight,  is  there  anything  beyond  the  reach  of  a  man 
of  his  years  and  experience.  The  astonishing  thing  is  rather 
the  number  of  these  opinions,  these  flashes,  the  fact  that  he  had 
seen  so  much,  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  about  so  many 
things.  In  common  with  many  a  small  boy  he  held  a  somewhat 
unflattering  opinion  of  missionaries,  and  took  a  boyish  delight 
in  painting  them  as  liars,  in  Lispeth,  or  as  stupidly  ignorant, 
in  The  Judgment  of  Dungara.  In  Lispeth,  we  should  note  in 
passing,  he  carries  on  in  the  method  which  he  employs,  a  very 
ancient  tradition  of  the  naive  outsider  as  a  critic  of  manners 
and  morals.  Lispeth  herself  is  thus  a  literary  descendant  of 
Marana's  Turkish  Spy,  Addison's  American  Indian  Kings, 
Voltaire's  Ingenu,  von  Scheffel's  Hiddigeigei,  and  a  literary 
cousin  of  Anatole  France's  Riquet,  and  of  Townsend's  Mr. 
Dooley.  Lispeth,  moreover,  rediscovers  the  widespread  idea, 
which  one  may  find  in  Balzac  for  example,  or  in  Bret  Harte, 
that  non-respectable  people  are  good  at  heart,  respectable  people, 


L02  KIPL1  VG    I  ll  I    8T0B1     R  BITES 

evil.       It    is  an   idea   thai    Ki|>liii'_r   is  never  weary  of  illustrating. 

It  is  implied  in  most  of  the  stories  of  Mrs.  Hauksbee  and  of  the 
soldiers  three,  in  .1  Bank  Fraud,  in  Umi  Baa  Black  Sheep;  and 
one  phase  of  it  is  clearly  formulated  in  Watches  of  th<  Night: 
\nw  may  have  noticed  thai  many  religious  people  are  deeply 
suspicious.  They  seem  for  purely  religious  purposes,  of  course 
— to  know  more  aboul  iniquity  than  the  Qnregenerate.  Per- 
haps tiny  were  specially  bad  before  they  became  converted! 
At  any  rate,  in  the  imputation  of  things  evil,  and  in  putting 
the  worst  construction  on  things  innocent,  a  certain  type  of  good 
people  may  be  trusted  to  surpass  all  others.  The  Colonel  and 
his  Wife,"  continues  Kipling,  "were  of  thai  type.  Bu1  the 
Colonel's  Wife  was  the  worst." 

This  is  characteristic  of  Kipling's  view  of  women,  a  view- 
that  does  not.  it  must  he  admitted,  undergo  material  change, 
from  the  early  verse  to  the  effect  that  "a  woman  is  only  a 
woman,  hut  a  good  cigar  is  a  smoke'7  to  the  recent  declaration 
that  "the  female  of  the  species  is  more  deadly  than  the  male." 
Naturally,  we  look  in  vain  for  a  Viola  or  a  Portia,  a  Rosalind 
or  a  Cordelia,  in  Kipling's  stories.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to 
remember  as  definite  personalities,  any  of  his  heroines;  and  if 
we  did,  we  should  not  yearn  to  meet  any  of  them.  Even  Mrs. 
Hauksbee  is  a  dangerous  person,  and  the  best  that  can  he  said 
for  her  is  that  she  has  "redeeming  qualities." 

Kipling,  of  course,  has  views  in  regard  to  the  relations  of 
the  sexes;  inevitably,  for  him,  a  young  man  married  is  a  young 
man  marred.  This  is  the  text  of  the  eight  stories  of  The  Gads- 
bys;  it  is  the  text  of  hi  the  Pridi  of  His  Youth,  and  even, 
incidentally,  of  Miss  Youghal's  Sais,  though  the  later  Deal  in 
Cothjn    reconciles  one  with   this  union.      And  two  stories  show 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  103 

that,  though  a  wicked  or  stupid  woman  may  exert  an  influence 
for  good,  it  is  without  her  knowledge  or  intention.11  However, 
the  men  appear  in  no  better  light.  If  they  are  marred  it  is 
clearly  enough  because  they  are  usually  fragile  or  worse — badly 
damaged  in  fact — to  begin  with.-  In  Three  and — an  Extra  Kip- 
ling notes  a  certain  reaction  after  marriage,  which  he  regards 
as  inevitable.  In  The  Bronckhorst  Divorce  Case  he  traces  the 
substitution  for  terms  of  endearment  of  terms  of  abuse,  used 
first  affectionately  and  ironically,  then,  as  love  dies — an  in- 
evitable death — quite  seriously  and  passionately.  The  only 
unions  that  he  idealizes  are  those  beyond  the  pale  and  without 
benefit  of  clergy,  which  are,  however,  by  their  very  nature, 
unreal  and  transitory.  He  distrusts  love  matches,  advocates 
the  continental  system  of  marriages  arranged  by  parents,  and, 
humorously,  the  establishment  of  a  Governmental  Matrimonial 
Department.  In  The  Education  of  Otis  Ycere  he  illustrates  the 
impossibility  of  "platonic  friendships,"  as  they  used  to  be 
called. 

Many  of  the  stories,  it  must  be  admitted,  do  concern  them- 
selves with  games  of  tennis  with  the  seventh  commandment. 
However,  the  number  of  such  stories  tends  to  decrease — the 
statistician  reports  fifteen  per  cent  in  Life's  Handicap  as  against 
twenty-five  per  cent  in  Plain  Tales.  And  of  these  stories  many 
represent  the  game  as  not  yet  begun,  as  wholly  prevented  even, 
thanks  to  the  intervention  perhaps  of  Mulvaney  or  Mrs.  Hauks- 
bee,  perhaps  of  Death  itself.  Others  represent  the  embarrassing 
consequences;  others,  the  tragic  ending  of  the  last  set.  It  is 
significant  that  in  none  is  the  game  represented  as  agreeable. 


11  In  Error  and  Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office.     Cf.  also  His  Chance 
in  Life,  where  the  hero  is  inspired  by  love  for  an  ugly  half-breed. 


104  KIPLING   l  III    8TOB1    WBI1  I  B 

The  players  lark  the  gaiety  and  animal  spirits,  the  unconscious 
ami  naturalness  of  Maupassant's  Light-hearted  and  unmoral 
cynics.  It  is  true  thai  W i | > I i 1 1 «_r-  danced  on  ground,  no1  where 
ntln  r  nun  lists,  as  Barrie  says,  bul  other  English  novelists,  had 
feared  to  tread.  He  touched  i1  with  lighl  and  hasty  feet;  he 
did  m>t  venture  to  walk  with  the  natural  gail  of  his  continental 
confreres,  scarcely  conscious  that  the  ground  differed  from  any 
other.  II''  skated  over  thin  ice;  he  did  not,  Like  the  Englishmen 
of  today,  break  through.  He  was  like  the  English  Boldiers 
after  the  taking  of  LJungtungpen,  who,  as  our  French  critic  puts 
it.  saw  thr  sun  rise  upon  their  too-simple  apparel,  while  the 
Hindoo  women  bursl  into  Laughter,  and  they,  worthy  suns  of 
modesl  Albion,  blushed  to  the  whites  of  their  eyes.  Himself  a 
worthy  son  of  modest  Albion.  Kipling  did  not  venture  to  call 
a  spade  a  spade;  "Janoo  and  Azi/.un,"  he  wrote  in  ///  tin  HOUSI 
of  Smhllioo,  "are  ...  Ladies  of  the  City,  and  theirs  was  an 
ancienl  and  more  or  less  honourable  profession."  Lalun,  in 
On  th<  City  Wall,  was  "a  member  of  the  most  ancienl  profession 
in  the  world.'"  And  .1/  tin  Pit's  Month  is  a  story  of  a  man 
and  his  wife  and  a  Tellium  Quid.  Kipling  was  thus  very  hesi- 
tant in  his  daring.  And  he  did  not  make  vice  attractive;  he 
was  never  frankly  animalistic,  like  the  French  naturalists,  nor 
did  lie  ever  aim.  like  certain  insidious  American  novelists  of  the 
present  day,  to  trouble  (in  .Matthew  Arnold's  phrase  about 
Tolstoi )  the  senses  of  those  who  like  to  have  their  senses  troubled. 
His  aim  seems  to  have  been  rather  that  of  the  youth  who  wishes 
to  persuade  you  that  he  has  lost  his  illusions,  that  he  knows  life, 
that  he  is  a  man.  If  his  first  triumph  was.  like  Harte's,  and 
as  Barrie  would  have  us  believe,  a  succes  d<  scandale,  its  scandal 
was  of  a  sort  that  can  no  longer  shock  or  surprise;  the  Liqueurs, 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  105 

which,  Barrie  says,  he  brought  from  India,  now  seem  mild 
enough ;  just  as,  in  1891,  when  Barrie  wrote  his  review,  Tenny- 
son 's  Idylls  of  the  King  had  lost  its  early  repute  as  a  scandalous 
production  improper  for  the  young  person  to  read. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  concerned  with  Kipling  the  satirist. 
The  satirist,  who  holds  up  to  ridicule  that  of  which  he  does  not 
approve,  must  of  necessit}'  be  something  of  a  muckraker,  must 
concern  himself  with  the  dirty  corner  of  a  room  which,  as  a 
whole,  may  be  beyond  reproach.  Contemporary  with  Kipling' 
the  satirist,  or  coming  perhaps  a  little  later,  is  Kipling  the 
humorist.  The  humorist  does  not,  like  the  satirist,  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  his  fellow  men ;  he  views  them  rather  with  s\-mpathy 
and  tolerance.  He  does  not  try  so  much  to  make  them  better 
by  holding  their  vices  up  to  ridicule,  as  he  tries  to  make  us,  his 
readers,  better  by  showing  us  that  these  vices  are  perhaps  in- 
evitable, or  counterbalanced  by  cpialities  wholly  admirable  and 
lovable.  The  humorist  holds  his  moral  judgment,  for  the 
moment,  in  abeyance,  isolates  his  hero  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
forgetting  what  harm  his  evil  ways  may  cause  to  his  fellow  men, 
recording  those  evil  ways  for  the  laughter  that  is  in  them,  yet 
not  forgetting,  all  the  while,  to  sympathize  with  the  evildoer  in 
his  inevitable  suffering.  It  is  as  humorist,  with  the  humorist's 
mingling  of  laughter  and  pity  and  SA'mpathy,  that  Kipling 
writes  of  the  soldiers  three.  If  they  are  sometimes  drunk  and 
disorderly,  if  they  are  petty  thieves,  if  they  are  too  careless 
gallants  in  their  love  affairs,  we  are  not  to  forget  that  all  is 
told  in  jest,  and  we  are  not  to  forget  that  these  privates  of  the 
line  are  effective  soldiers,  highly  valued  by  their  officers,  loyal 
to  country,  regiment,  and  friends,  warm-hearted  and  humorous. 
As  they  themselves  would  put  it : 


106  KIPLING   l  III    8TOB1     R  BITES 

w  ■   aren'1  do  thin  red   'eroes,  nor  we  aren'1  no  blackguards  too, 
B  '  single  men  in  barricka,  mosl   remarkable  1  ik<-  you; 
Ami  it'  Bometimes  our  conduck  isn't  all  your  fancj   paints: 
Why,  singlo  men  in  barricka  don'1  grow  into  plaster  saints. 

We  are  not  to  sil  in  judgment  upon  them;  we  are  to  Laugh  at 
them  good-naturedly,  shed  a  tear  upon  them,  and  remember  that 
they  are  their  own  worsl  enemies.  Our  attitude  toward  them 
should  perhaps  be  the  attitude  which  we  assume  toward  children, 
the  attitude  so  charmingly  defined  and  exemplified  at  the  end 
of  Baa  Baa,  Black  Sh(  <  p: 

"Mother  would  be  awfully  cross  if  you  walked  through  that  ditch," 
says  Judy,  continuing  a  conversation. 

• '  Mother  \s  never  angry, ' '  says  Punch.  "She'd  just  say,  '  Von  're  a  little 
pagal,'  and  that's  not   nice,  but  I'll  show." 

Punch  walks  through  the  ditch  and  mires  himself  to  the  knees.  "Mother, 
dear,"  he  shouts,  "  I  'm  just  as  dirty  as  I  can  ipos-sib-ly  be!  ' 

"Then  change  your  clothes  as  quickly  as  you  pos-st'My  can!  "  Mother's 
char  voice  rings  out  from  the  house.      "And  don't  be  a  little  pagal!" 

Punch,  of  course,  being  no  less  than  Kipling  himself,  is  an 
exceptional  child.  The  passage,  therefore,  suggests  the  limita- 
tion as  well  as  the  quality  of  Kipling's  humor.  He  views  with 
amused  tolerance  or  sympathy  only  the  exceptional  children,  of 
whatever  growth.  His  heroes  and  heroines  alike  are,  as  we 
have  seen,  of  that  type.  Superlatively  effective  they  are,  all  of 
them;  people  who  do  things,  who  succeed,  who  advance;  people 
who  ask  for  what  they  want  or  who  help  themselves.  Kipling 
thus  stops  far  short  of  the  breadth  of  tolerance  of  a  Chaucer,  a 
Dickens,  or  a  Bret  Ilarte. 

One  might  say,  perhaps  with_a  certain  degree  of  truth,  thai 
the  function  of  the  satirist  is  to  reveal  the  evil  in  the  hearts  of 
respectable  people;  the  function  of  the  humorist,  to  reveal  the 
good  in  the  hearts  of  non-respect  able  people.      Kipling  performs 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  107 

now  one  function,  now  the  other,  often  both.  For  in  all  his 
stories  there  are  touches  both  of  humor  and  of  satire ;  in  the 
satirical  stories  there  is  often  humorous  tolerance ;  and  in  the 
humorous  stories,  shafts  of  satire.  In  none,  I  think,  can  he 
be  regarded  as  immoral. 

Kipling's  moralizing  is  by  no  means  restricted  to  the  conduct 
involved  in  the  more  intimate  and  personal  relations.  He  is,  as 
I  pointed  out  at  the  beginning,  the  singer  of  the  clan,  of  the 
race  and  nation,  of  the  empire,  the  administration,  and  the  army, 
of  the  officials  and  the  officers.  Whether  as  satirist  or  humorist 
his  comments  range  over  every  phase  of  The  System,  the  system 
that  he  outlined,  in  The  Conversion  of  Aurelian  MoGoggin,  as 
the  only  creed  that  will  work  in  India.  Concerning  Kipling's 
views  of  The  System,  it  is  difficult,  as  usual,  to  generalize.  How- 
ever, one  may  venture  to  assert  that  what  he  chiefly  criticizes 
is  the  failure  of  one  part  to  understand  or  appreciate  another; 
it  is  for  understanding  and  appreciation,  for  the  necessity  of 
seeing  things  from  other  men's  points  of  view,  that  he  chiefly 
pleads. 

It  is  essential  to  understand  the  native  Indian  point  of  view, 
for  the  dominant  race  to  understand  its  subjects.  So  obvious  a 
matter  as  this  seems  to  demand  continual  emphasis.  Strickland, 
says  Kipling  ironically,  "held  the  extraordinary  theory  that  a 
Policeman  in  India  should  try  to  know  as  much  about  the  natives 
as  the  natives  knew  themselves."  It  is  therefore  Strickland, 
and  Strickland  alone,  who  can  save  Fleete  from  the  consequences 
of  defiling  the  idol  of  Hanuman,  and  Biel  from  the  destruction 
of  his  character  by  the  easily  purchased  native  evidence  in  The 
Bronckhorst  Divorce  Case.  But  he  could  not  save  Imray,  who 
was  murdered  because  he  had  patted  on  the  head  a  native  child 


L08  KIPLING  THE  8T0B1    WBITEB 

who,  later,  *  I  i  *  -  *  1  of  fever.  It  was  not  Strickland,  however,  bu1 
Tods,  a  six-year-old  boy,  who  was  aware  ihat  a  bill  which  re- 
stricted  leases  to  five  years  was  not  popular  with  the  natives. 
and  so  unwittingly  introduced  whal  came  to  be  known  as  Tods' 
Amendment.  .Manifestly  it  is  accessary  to  know  these  things, 
just  as  it  is  accessary  to  know  that  a  native  Head  of  a  District 
cannol  command  the  reaped  of  the  governed,  and  that,  it"  such 

a  is  appointed,  confusion  and  murder  will  result.     Even  the 

independence  of  villages  is  dangerous;12  and  all  clemency  is 
construed  as  weakness."13  Yet.  in  the  evenl  of  a  conflict  with 
Russia,  the  native  can  be  counted  on  to  fighl  side  by  side  with 
the  English." 

Incidentally  one  might  extend  this  plea  for  a  knowledge  of 
the  native  point  of  view,  to  include  the  points  of  view  of  the 
elephanl  (Moti  Guj—Mutineet)  who  will  work  just  as  long  as 
his  master  tells  him  to  and  no  Longer;  and  of  the  orang-outang, 
who  is  afraid  only  of  snakes,  and  subject  to  murderous  jealousy 
(Bertran  and  Bimi).  These  stories  are  significant  as  anticipat- 
ing the  further  variation  of  point  of  view  in  The  Junglt   Hooks. 

Among  the  English  themselves  the  main  object  of  Kipling's 
attack  is  home  ignorance  of  Indian  affairs,  of  civilian  officials 
and  of  the  army  alike.  In  such  stories  as  At  the  End  of  tht 
Passage  and  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  while  Kipling  celebrates 
the  generous  courage  and  devotion  of  the  English  officials,  who 
step  forward  unhesitatingly  to  fill  the  gaps  made  in  their  ranks 
by  death,  he  at  the  same  time  bitterly  satirizes  those  "vestry- 
men" at  home,  who  denounce  the  Indian  Civil  Service  as  the 
preserve  of  English   aristocracy,  or  who,  like  the  Member  for 


12  Marrowbit   Juki  *. 

13  On  tin   City  Wall. 

14  The  Mm,   Who  Was. 


PLOTS  AND  THE1E  SIGNIFICANCE  109 

Lower  Tooting,  wander  ignorantly  about  India,  talking  of  the 
benefits  of  British  rule,  and  fly  at  the  approach  of  cholera. 
There  exists,  or  existed,  also,  in  England  a  curious  inapprecia- 
tion  of  Thomas  Atkins.  Learoyd  and  Mulvaney  had  found  that 
the  prevalent  opinion  held  enlistment  as  the  final  act  and  climax 
in  a  career  of  crime.  And  Ortheris  had  been  "turned  out  of 
a  measly  'arf -license  pub  down  Lambeth  way,  full  o'  greasy 
kebmen,"  because  he  was  wearing  the  Queen's  uniform.  Doubt- 
less Kipling  has  done  a  real  service  in  making  Thomas  Atkins 
better  known  and  better  liked  and  appreciated  by  his  fellow- 
countrymen.  In  addition  to  the  continual  illustration  of  the 
essential  soldierly  virtues  of  courage  and  loyalty,  Kipling  makes 
two  studies  in  the  peculiar  psychology  of  the  soldier  in  India. 
One  is  in  nostalgia,  and  shows  how  attacks  of  homesickness  may 
develop  a  kind  of  temporary  insanity,  in  which  so  good  a  soldier 
as  Ortheris  may  be  so  far  out  of  his  mind  as  to  desert.  The  other 
is  in  hysteria,  and  shows  how  heat,  enforced  idleness,  and  over- 
feeding may  result  in  a  man's  "running  amuck,"  when  talk 
about  the  prevalence  of  crime  in  the  army  is  sheer  nonsense. 
The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and.  Aft  was  written  in  part  as  a  study 
of  a  green  regiment  under  fire  for  the  first  time,  to  prove  the 
necessity  of  a  few  old  soldiers  in  the  ranks  to  teach  the  "rookies" 
how  to  make  themselves  snug  at  night  and  how  to  play  the  game 
of  battle,  and  convey  much  other  military  information  of  great 
value  to  officers  and  men. 

These  are  a  few — relatively  a  very  few — of  the  vast  number 
of  the  views  concerning  the  conduct  of  life  which  are  implied, 
or,  more  often,  explicitly  stated  in  Kipling's  stories.  Exhaustive 
discussion  is  impossible.  There  have  been  among  the  writers 
of   short-stories    profounder   moralists,    who    have    held    higher 


HO  KIPLING   l  111    8TOB1     WBI1  /  S 

ideals,  who  have  thoughl  more  systematically  and  made  a  more 
thoroughgoing  attempl  to  find  the  meaning  of  the  mighty  maze 
which  confronted  them.     Bui  nunc  has  deall  with  Buch  a  number 

and  such  a  variety  of  phases  of  human  conduct.  Perhaps  it  is 
most  enlightening  to  regard  Kipling  the  moralist  simply  as 
another  phase  of  Kipling  the  journalist.  For  the  journalist 
mils!  not  only  have  at  command  all  kinds  of  knowledge,  hut 
also  opinions  and  judgments  on  all  the  subjects  which  may 
interest  his  readers.  He  must  be  ready  to  speak  with  an  air 
of  authority  and  finality  on  any  question.  It  may  be  that 
writing  for  the  Gazette  or  the  Pioneer,  writing  as  the  Gazette 
or  the  Pioneer,  Kipling  developed  the  editorial  manner,  the 
manner  of  the  c.r-rathedra  pronouncement.  He  spoke  through 
the  paper  much  as  the  basso  with  the  megaphone  sings  the  part 
of  the  dragon  through  the  dragon's  mouth  in  the  opera  of 
Siegfried.  Appearing  in  the  stories,  in  Ids  own  person,  Kip- 
ling forgets  to  lay  aside  his  megaphone,  the  editorial  manner 
of  confident  assurance.  But  for  all  this  assurance,  for  all  the 
vast  number  of  subjects  he  conceives  himself  able  to  discuss  with 
authority,  he  develops,  as  I  have  said,  no  moral  system.  He  is, 
once  more,  not  the  thinker,  he  is  still  the  genius  of  imagination, 
of  sense  of  fact.  ''The  evidence,"  says  the  (Quarterly  reviewer, 
from  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  "The  evidence  of  his  senses 
bewilders  and  staggers  him;  in  the  hurly-burly  of  events,  the 
^  I  jumbling  of  eharacters,  the  disappointments  of  fortune,  he  seems 
to  have  lost  all  clue  to  their  meaning." 


CHAPTER  IV 

GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE 
FIRST  PERIOD 

If  Kipling-  was  bewildered  and  staggered  by  the  evidence  of 
his  senses  and  found  no  clew  to  the  meaning  of  it  all,  the  critic 
of  Kipling,  after  an  analysis  of  the  technique  of  his  early 
stories,  finds  himself  in  much  the  same  position.  He  is  im- 
pressed with  the  variety,  with  the  richness,  with  the  profusion 
and  confusion  of  Kipling's  methods.  /An  attempt  to  give  an 
orderly  and  reasonable  account  of  it  all  may  very  properly  be 
based  on  an  analysis  of  the  personality  and  training  of  Kipling 
himself.  These  can,  I  think,  be  shown  to  have  developed  nat- 
urally, if  not  inevitably,  the  prevailing  characteristics  of  his 
technique.  And  these  characteristics  can,  I  think,  be  summed 
up  in  three  adjectivesysKjpling 's  teehnique-Ji^aaJisti%-mma/ntio'1 
and  intense.1 

The  causes  of  Kipling's  realism  are  not  far  to  seek.  He 
had,  by  nature,  a  certain  clearness  of  vision ;  he  had  rather  mar- 
velous powers  of  observation ;  and  he  had  an  insatiable  curiosity, 
a  desire  to  turn  all  the  pages  of  the  book  of  life,  dwelling  not 
too  long  upon  any  one  of  them,  an  instinct  like  his  own  Tommy 
Atkins 's : 

For  to  admire  an'  for  to  see, 

For  to  be  'old  this  world  so  wide — 
It  never  done  no  good  to  me, 

But  I  can't  drop  it  if  I  tried. 


1  As  these  terms  are  denned  in  Professor  W.  A.  Neilson's  The  Essentials 
of  Poetry. 


Ul>  KIPLING  Till    8T0B1    R  ////  I  8 

These  qualities  of  Kipling's  character  were  inherited,  it  is  per- 
haps qoI  too  much  to  assume,  from  his  father,  the  artist   and 
antiquarian.     The  accurate  detail  of  the  latter's  illustrations  bf 
y.  Kim  is  significant.     Separated  from  his  parents  Kipling  found 

himself  ai  an  early  age  fact-  tn  face  with  the  real  and  unfriendly 
world  outside.  It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  all  of  l>aa  I'xm,  Black 
.  Sheep  is  literally  true;  bu1  it  may  1h'  safely  regarded  as  an 
^  accurate  summary  of  Kipling's  own  impression  of  this  period 
of  his  life.  Be  saw  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature  -narrow 
religiosity,  hypocrisy,  jealousy;  he  "drank  deep  of  the  bitter 
waters  of  Hate,  Suspicion,  and  Despair."  We  may  read  the 
plater  stories  of  school  life,  Stall,;/  and  Company,  in  the  same 
way.  Kipling  is  manifestly  the  spectacled  Beetle  of  these 
tales;  in  the  last  one  he  is,  indeed,  no  longer  Beetle,  but  "I." 
He  is  not  writing  accurate  autobiography;  hut  he  does  give  us 
many  clews  as  to  his  own  nature,  his  early  tastes,  his  likes  and 
dislikes,  the  kind  of  training  he  received  in  the  Tinted  Services 
College;  he  makes  clear,  so  to  speak,  Why  he  is  Who.  There 
was  much  to  cultivate  the  imagination,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
hut  more  to  cultivate  the  already  keen  sense  of  fact  in  the 
future  realist.  The  college  was,  to  begin  with,  purely  practical 
in  purpose  ;  its  aim  was  not  general  culture,  but  preparation  for 
Army  or  Navy  or  Civil  Service.  Seventy-five  per  cent  of  its 
students  were  sons  of  officers.  It  did  not  set  out  to  make 
scholars;  and  in  pure  scholarship  Kipling — or  Beetle — had  no 
interest  whatever.  King,  the  master  who  taught  Latin,  a 
Balliol  man,  a  wit  and  scholar,  inexcusably  sarcastic  and  hope- 
lessly ignorant  of  hoys,  is  the  "villain"  of  the  book.  He  is 
continually  holding  forth  concerning  the  "crass  an'  materialized 
brutalitv  of  the  middle  classes — readiif  solely  for  marks.      Not 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF   THE  FIRST  PERIOD        113 

a  scholar  in  the  whole  school."  Beetle  is,  says  King,  "with  the 
single  exception  of  Stalky,  the  very  vilest  manufacturer  of  'bar- 
barous hexameters'  that  I  have  ever  dealt  with."  If  Beetle 
was  not  in  sympathy  with  pure  classical  scholarship,  no  more 
was  he  in  sympathy  with  pure  science.  He  and  his  friends 
looked  down  with  infinite  scorn  on  those  who  professed  an  inter- 
est in  natural  history.  And  Beetle  himself  "is  as  the  brutes 
that  perish  about  sines  and  cosines."  Evidently  Kipling's 
curiosity  was  not  insatiable  as  regards  useless  things  like  the 
structure  of  Latin  verse  or  trigonometry.  But  it  was  aroused 
by  facts  which  seemed  to  have  a  useful  bearing.  He  read 
Viollet-le-Duc  and  bribed  workmen  to  let  him  examine  a  house 
under  construction,  in  order  that  he  might  properly  place  a 
dead  cat  between  floor  and  ceiling  of  a  rival  dormitory ;  he  made 
a  study  of  the  control  of  the  gas  supply,  in  order  that  all  the 
college  lights  might  go  out  at  the  proper  moment ;  and  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  art  of  the  compositor,  gained  as  editor  of  the  college 
magazine,  enabled  him  to  shift  about  the  wTords  in  a  Latin  exam- 
ination paper,  to  the  discomfiture  of  King. 

The  "student  activities"  of  Beetle  and  his  friends  took 
mainly  the  form  of  practical  jokes  at  the  expense  of  masters 
and  school-fellows;  and  these,  as  Kipling  shows  very  clearly  in 
the  last  story,  were  the  best  possible  preparation  for  the  activities 
of  after  life.  In  general  they  hated  the  organized  sports  of  the 
colleges;  they  had  little  sympathy  "with  the  flannelled  fools  at 
the  wicket  or  the  muddied  oafs  at  the  goal" ;  they  preferred  their 
own  individual  activities.  They  distrusted  sentiment,  or  at  least 
all  talk  of  sentiment.  It  is  only  King  who  holds  forth  about 
the  spirit  of  the  school  and  the  great  traditions  of  ancient  seats 
of  learning.      An  M.  P.  puts  an  end,  by  his  ill-advised  twaddle 


ill  KIPLING  TH1    ST0B1    n  HI  I  ES 

aboul   patriotism,  to  a  volunteer  cadel  corps  which,  previous  to 
his  coming,  had  flourished  in  the  school. 

.Much  of  Beetle's  time  was  given  to  reading.  The  Head 
Master  gave  him  the  run  of  his  own  brown-bound,  tobacco 
scented  library  without  prohibition  or  recommendation.  Kip- 
ling's lisl  mentions  for  the  mosl  pari  rather  romantic  than 
classical  writers;  elsewhere  there  is  much  talk  of  Browning  and 
of  cramming  Shakespeare  for  examinations.  Neither  Browning 
Dor  Shakespeare  was  ignoranl  of  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature 
of  failed  to  look  fact   in  t  he  face. 

The  seamy  side  revealed  itself  in  actual  Life  to  the  clear 
vision  of  Beetle  and  his  friends,  in  masters  and  school-fellows 
alike.  They  read  character  with  unerring  precision  and  justice 
-the  self-satisfied  wit,  cheap  though  clever  sarcasm,  and  Oxford 
'side"  of  King;  the  weakness  an. I  peculiar  susceptibility  to 
suggestion  of  Prout,  their  own  house-master;  the  gullibility  of 
Bartopp,  the  natural  historian;  the  cowardice  of  bullies,  the 
ignorance  of  the  good  scholars  and  masters'  pets. 

A  year  before  the  end  of  the  course  the  three  friends  left  the 
college,  Beetle  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  to  become  subeditor  of 
an  Indian  newspaper,  his  passage  paid  and  a  hundred  pounds 
a  year.  Here  again  his ■- -Kipling's  activities  brougb.1  him 
face  to  face  with  facts,  more  and  more  with  the  seamy  side.  Ik- 
had  wide  opportunities  for  observation,  and  it  was  his  business 
to  observe  and  to  report.  He  dealt,  by  profession,  not  with 
whai  happened  far  away  and  long  ago,  bu1  with  the  world  im- 
mediately about  him.  lie  was  immersed  in  its  vivid  details,  in 
details  all  the  more  vivid  because  they  were  strange,  because  of 
the  contrast  with  the  English  life  of  his  school  days,  and  because 
of  his  familiarity  with  them  in  childhood.      It  was  a  combination 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD        115 

peculiarly  fitted  to  grip  the  attention,  to  stimulate  the  powers 
of  observation — this  recognition  of  the  familiar  in  the  strange, 
with  the  sharp  contrast  of  utterly  different  civilizations,  under 
conditions  which  inevitably  brought  out  realities  of  character 
and  swept  all  shams  aside. 

The  result  of  all  this  training  was  Realism,  realism  of  the 
peculiar  type  practised  by  Kipling,  a  realism  essentially  orig- 
inal.    His  originality  as  realist — not  his  originality  as  romancer, 
which  is  quite  a  different  matter — is  of  the  sort  advocated  by 
Flaubert   in  his  famous  advice   to   the   young   Maupassant,    an 
originality  which   consists  wholly   in  seeing  things   for  oneself 
and  expressing  what  one  really  sees.      This  realism  of  Kipling's      , 
is  reflected  in  the  representative  character  of  his  work,  in  the  / 
wealth  of  details  of  time  and  place  and  people.  I    Yet  Kipling] 
never  collects  details  as  a  scientist  does ;  he  is  not  seeking  classi- 
fied or  classifiable  knowledge;  he   is  not  a  meteorologist,   or  a 
geographer,  or  an  ethnologist.      It   is  for  the  pure  joy  of  the 
working  that  he  delights  to 

"draw  the  Thing  as  he  sees  it  for  the  God  of  Things  as 
they  are." 

He  seeks,  as  he  had  sought  as  schoolboy  and  as  journalist,  facts 
that  are  in  themselves  humanly  interesting  or  have  some  bearing 
upon  a  possible  plot.  He  feels  under  no  obligation  to  give  uSi 
a  complete  or  a  precisely  accurate  picture  of  human  life.  "Get 
your  facts  first,''  Mark  Twain  once  told  him,  "...and  then 
you  can  distort  'em  as  much  as  you  please."  He  seems  to  fol- 
low this  advice.  He  limits  himself  to  superlative  characters ; 
he  takes  no  interest  in  the  commonplace  ones,  nor  yet  in  the 
queer  or  the  problematic.      His  representative  quality   is  thus_ 


116  KIPLING   l  ll  I    8T0B1     WBITEM 

limited  and  ;i  matter  of  accident.  He  did  nol  Bel  ou1  to  cover  his 
field  with  scientific  thoroughness  and  system.  You  cannol 
imagine  his  stories,  like  Balzac's  novels,  classified  as  Scenes  from 
Private  Life,  Scenes  from  Parisian  Life,  from  Country  Life, 
from  Military  Life,  and  so  on.  Y<>n  cannol  imagine  Kipling 
conceiving  a  large  plan  and  working  it  ou1  on  a  Large  scale, 
in  a  thoroughgoing  manner.  He  lias  rather  the  journalist- 
novelist's  desire  for  what  will  make  interesting  copy;  hence  his 
superlative  characters,  and  his  picturesquely  evil  ones  as  well. 
'■  Hence  his  social  satire  for  what  is  social  satire,  after  all.  but 
a  kind  of  glorified  gossip,  of  artistic  scandal.'  Yet  for  all 
his  preoccupation  with  the  scandalous  side  of  human  nature, 
Kipling's  art  is  never  naturalism;  his  characters  are  always 
something  more  than  animals,  they  have  human  motives  and 
ideals;  and  Kipling  is  too  much  the  Anglo-Saxon,  to  follow  Zola 
or  .Maupassant  in  their  relentless  pictures  of  the  animal  aspect 
of  man. 

In  the  psychology  of  these  characters  Kipling  is  never  inter 
ested  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  with  him.  though  always  present, 
yet  never  the  chief  element  in  the  story.  Its  purpose  is  rather 
to  increase  the  intensity  of  the  whole.  He  does  not  deal 
with  difficult  psychological  problems,  with  peculiar  or  unusual 
motives.  And  he  emphasizes  the  external  expression  of  emotion 
by  word  and  gesture.  Here  again  his  method  is  not  the  result 
of  analysis  or  of  introspection  but  of  observation. 

In  Structure,  the  resull  of  this  observation  is  a  wealth  of 
minor  incidents  which  crowd  in  too  rapidly  to  permit  themselves 
to  be  gathered  up  and  organized  into  greal  scenes.  A  further 
result  is  a  certain  incoherence.  For  Kipling,  from  the  presenl 
point    of   view,    may   be   classed    with    those    realists   who   do    not 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD        117 

impress  themselves  much  upon  the  structure  of  their  stories, 
who  prefer  rather  to  follow  the  waywardness  of  events  in  real 
life.  It  is  because  of  the  brevity  of  his  stories  that  Kipling- 
does  not  wander  very  far.  If  the}'  are  not  distinguished 
examples  of  proportion  and  coherence,  they  fulfil  the  other 
requirement  of  short-story  structure,  they  are  admirably  con- 
crete. There  is  in  them  a  wealth  of  significant  detail,  of 
characteristic  gesture,  of  characteristic  speech — the  slang  or 
jargon  of  various  professions  or  walks  in  life.  More  dramatist 
than  grammarian,  he  delighted  rather  to  get  up  a  particular 
vocabulary  for  this  or  that  purpose,  than  to  polish  and  correct 
his  own  style.  In  Stalky  and  Company  Beetle's  friends  urged 
him  not  to  be  so  "beastly  professional"  or  so  "filthy  technical" 
in  his  talk.  Kipling's  readers  sometimes  echo  this  protest;  for 
the  special  word  is  often  unintelligible ;  he  achieves,  not  sim- 
plicity, but  precision  of  style — a  habit  of  the  realists.  When 
you  read  Zola  you  turn  continually  to  your  dictionary,  and  often 
in  vain. 

Kipling 's  Moral  Interpretations  keep  close  to  the  facts ;  he  is 
not  given  to  speculation,  to  discovering  new  duties.  He  delights 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  many  respectable  people  are  bad  (as 
many  respectable  people  are  aware).  It  is  well  that  the}-  should 
be  reminded  of  their  own  shortcomings  in  order  that  they  may 
judge  less  harshly  the  openly  and  honestly  wicked.  Doubtless 
his  criticism  of  the  English  administration  of  India  is  sound 
enough ;  in  any  case  it  is  concerned  wholly  with  practical  prob- 
lems, not  with  such  general  questions  as  the  duties  of  powerful 
nations  with  reference  to  the  weak,  for  example;  and  he  ex- 
presslj'  condemns  Aurelian  McGoggin's  preoccupation  with  the 
ethics  of  a  Comte  or  a  Spencer. 


1  is  KIPLING   l  II I    si  <n:)    WBI1  I  R 

So  much  for  Kipling  the  realist.  He  is  also  a  romancer. 
And  though  his  training  seems  to  have  pushed  him  mainly  in 
the  direction  of  realism,  ii  pushed  him  somewhal  in  the  direction 
uf  romance  as  well. 

An  a  child  he  was  of  ;i  type  beloved  in  romantic  Literature, 
a  "problematic"  character,  a  person  thai  is  no1  perfectly 
adjusted  to  the  world  of  men  about  him,  unhappy  because 
misunderstood  and  Celt  to  be  ou1  of  place.  Thus,  outcasl  and 
Black  sheep  ;is  he  was.  he  was  thrown  much  on  his  own  resources. 
Obliged  to  see  something  of  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature, 
he  took  refuge  in  reading,  in  reading  Indeed  like  a  perfectly 
normal  child.  Grimm's  Fairy  Tales  and  Hans  And«rsen.  And 
also  Tennyson's  early  poems  and  Gulliver's  Travels — pure  ad 
venture,  of  course,  from  the  child's  point  of  view.  He  was 
happy  to  be  lefl  alone,  so  that  he  could  read  as  much  as  he 
pleased.  ••Then  came  days  of  doing  absolutely  nothing,  of 
dreaming  dreams  and  marching  imaginary  armies  up  and  down 
stairs....  But,  later,  he  grew  afraid  of  the  shadows  of  window- 
curtains  and  the  flapping  of  doors  and  the  creaking  of  shutters. 
He  went  out  into  the  garden,  and  the  rustling  of  the  laurel- 
bushes  frightened  him. 

In  Stalky  and  Company  it  appears  that  Beetle — that  is 
the  schoolboy  Kipling — more  fortunate  than  Black  Sheep,  has 
friends  and  is  feared  or  respected.  But  he  and  Stalky  and 
.McTurk  withdraw  from  the  school  activities  to  read  and  loaf 
and  smoke  in  secret  places  of  their  own.  often  places  which 
charm  by  pure  beauty  of  landscape.  The  three  are  not  under- 
stood by  school-fellows  or  masters,  except  the  Head  and  the 
school  chaplain:  and  here  again  there  are  hours  of  solitude  with 
books.      Hectic's  reading  in  the  Head's  library  was  largely  in 


GENEBAL  CHABACTEBISTICS  OF  THE  F1BST  PEBIOD        119 

imaginative  authors:  "There  were  scores  and  scores  of  ancient 
dramatists;  there  were  Hakluyt,  his  voyages;  French  trans- 
lations of  Muscovite  authors  called  Pushkin  and  Lermontoff; 
little  tales  of  a  heady  and  bewildering  nature,  interspersed  with 
unusual  songs — Peacock  was  that  writer's  name;  there  was 
Borrow 's  'Lavengro';  an  odd  theme,  purporting  to  be  a  trans- 
lation of  something,  called  a  Rubaiyat ; .  .  .  there  were  hundreds 
of  volumes  of  verse — Crashaw;  Dryden  [curiously  enough]; 
Alexander  Smith;  L.  E.  L. ;  Lydia  Sigourney;  Fletcher  and  a 
purple  island;  Donne;  Marlowe's  'Faust':  and  .  .  .  Ossian ;  'The 
Earthly  Paradise';  'Atalanta  in  Calydon';  and  Rossetti — to 
name  only  a  few."  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this  is  a  fair 
account  of  Kipling's  reading,  indeed,  of  his  only  direct  prepara- 
tion for  his  career  as  journalist  and  man  of  letters.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that,  with  the  exception  of  Dryden,  all  these  authors  are 
of  the  imaginative  or  sentimental  type,  and  many  are  of  one 
phase  or  another  of  the  definitely  romantic  school.  It  is  clear, 
then,  that  beside  the  realistic  impulse  there  existed  a  romantic 
impulse,  less  powerful,  indeed,  yet  capable  of  putting  its  mark 
on  the  young  author's  work.  The  India,  too,  which  he  saw,  was 
not  without  romance.  The  accounts  of  his  actual  journeys  in 
From  Sea  to  Sea  show  that  he  was  sensitive  to  its  beauty,  its 
age,  and  its  mystery. 

As  result  of  this  romantic  impulse  there  is,  inevitably,  an 
element  of  romance  in  Kipling's  work;  but  it  is  much  less  pro- 
nounced than  the  realistic  element.  It  does  not  appear  that  he 
was  stimulated  by  the  imaginative  or  romantic  authors  whom 
he  read  in  the  Head's  library.  There  is  very  little  of  the  cpiality 
of  the  Arabian  Nights  in  the    India   which  he   depicts.      Only 


now  and  then,  in  such  stories  as  [The  Strange  Bide  of  Marroivbie 


120  KIPLING   THE  8TOB1    R  Hill  B 

JukeSj  in  77"   .l/'//>   U7io  Would  b(   King,  or  in   Wit  html  Benefit 
of  Clergy  and  stories  of  its  class,  does  he  seem  to  offer  an  escape 
manifestly  qoI  always  an  agreeable  escape     from  fact. 

Mis  own  "problematic"  personality,  his  early  lark  of  ad 
justmenl  to  the  world  about  him,  is  reflected  in  certain  of  the 
character-types  which  he  creates.  Mulvaney  and  Company  have 
Hindi  the  same  relation  to  officers  and  fellow-soldiers  thai  Stalky 
and  Company  have  to  masters  and  school-fellows.  Only  the 
Colonel  understands  one  group;  only  the  Head,  the  other.  Both 
groups  are  irregular,  highly  individualized:  their  social  func- 
tions are  not  easily  classified.  Yet  they  are  not  "queer" 
characters;  they  are  merely  superlative,  idealized  superstructure 
resting  upon  a  solid  basis  of  fact.  This  basis  of  fact  is  largely 
conveyed  by  vividly  conjured  up  mental  images,  by  a  kind  of 
imagination  which  is  close  to  memory. 

In  the  variety  of  races  represented  there  is  something  of 
that  exotism  which  not  uncommonly  accompanies  the  romantic 
tendency.  A  phase  or  extension  of  the  same  principle  is  in- 
volved in  Kipling's  power  of  tempering  his  own  mind  to  enter 
another's  soul,  be  that  other  English  officer  or  official  or  child, 
or  native,  man  or  woman. 

In  the  matter  of  Structure,  it  is  manifest  that  the  imagination 
of  the  journalist  and  writer  of  fiction  has  been  at  work  in  the 
perception  and  selection  of  facts,  of  such  facts  as  are  humanly 
interesting.  The  results  of  this  imaginative  observation  are 
combined  with  imaginative  spontaneity,  with  an  unconsidered 
naturalness,  which  does  not  permit  the  reader's  perception  of 
form  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  seeing,  hearing,  feeling  with 
the  writer,  reflecting  the  mood  of  the  story,  answering  not  to 
an  intellectual  but   to  an  emotional  appeal.      And  while,  in  the 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD        121 

invention  of  plot,  the  imagination  as  a  rule  runs  close  to  what 
may  well  have  happened,  it  breaks  free,  now  and  again,  from 
the  world  of  observed  or  observable  events  and  creates  astound- 
ing adventures — serious  or  tragic,  like  those  of  the  Man  Who 
Would  be  King — comic,  like  those  of  Krishna  Mulvaney. 

The  third  quality  of  Kipling's  work,  its  intensity,,  is  more 

' j  striking  than  the  other  two,  and  perhaps  more  influential  in  the 

/^determination  of  his  technique.  Like  his  imaginative  or  roman- 
tic quality,  it  springs  primarily  from  personality,  from  the 
problematic  character  of  the  writer.  His  early  ill  adjustment 
to  the  world  about  him  led,  as  always  with  the  strong  and  cour- 
ageous, to  vigorous  self-assertion.      The  greater  the  opposition 

/  of  the  narrow  Aunty  Rosas  and  Masters  of  Latin,  who  do  not 
comprehend,    the    greater    the    opposition    of    the    "system" — - 

■^  whether  in  the  form  of  the  boys'  school,  where  Black  Sheep  was 
bullied  by  the  sons  of  shop-keepers,  or  of  the  United  Services 
College,  or  of  the  Pioneer,  where  Kipling  learned  that  the  busi- 
ness of  a  subeditor  was  to  subedit,  and  that  he  had  to  obey  an 
order  on  the  run — whatever  the  form  of  the  opposition  to  the 
young  Kipling,  the  more  powerful  it  was,  the  more  powerful 
was  the  individuality  which  he  perforce  developed  to  resist  it — 
"2»the  more  self-assertive,  the  more  Kipling,  he  became.  So  that 
his  very  name  has  for  some  readers  the  air  of  a  present  parti- 
oiple,  connoting  the  perpetual  self-activity  of  the  bearer.  He 
shows,  however,  the  marks  of  the  struggle.  We  have  already 
noted  a  certain  cynicism  as  a  phase  of  his  sense  of  fact.  As  a 
phase  of  his  intensity  we  should  note  a  certain  impatience  of 
disposition,  a  natural  irritability  perhaps  sharpened  by  the 
demands  of  journalism. 

This  intense  personality,  intensified  by  the  vicissitudes  of  his 


122  KIPLING   7  ///    8T0B1     H  /.'/ /  /  S 

training,  Kipling  was  able  to  project  into  his  work,  so  thai  one 
in. iy  quite  safely  affirm  that  of  all  short-stories  in  the  English 
language  Kipling's  are  the  must   intense. 

In  every  paragraph  thai  he  wrote  you  feel  bis  vital  energy.8 
h   reveals  itself  in  the  general  air  of  spontaneity,  in  a  certain 

•in  of  tin'  conventionalities  of  form3  in  the  spontaneous  over- 
flow "f  Peelings  evoKe3  by  the  story,  in  tli"  vigorous  appeal  to 
the  reader's  sympathy.  When  Kipling  is  realistic  or  romantic 
he  is  intensely  realistic  or  romantic.  Thai  is.  it  is  the  quality 
of  intensity  that  raises  realism  and  romance  tn  a  degree  so  high; 
intensity  that  seems  to  compel  the  elaboration  and  determine  the 
nature  of  every  one  of  the  elements  id'  narration.  The  time  of 
action  must  he  the  present,  for  the  situation  must  he  new  and 
vital,  nut  such  as  to  call  up  tender  regrel  Cor  the  past,  or  any 
of  the  milder  emotions  with  which  we  contemplate  what  is 
finished  and  pul  away.  It  is  significanl  that  there  is  in  Baa  Baa, 
Black  Sin,  />  no  delight,  no  regret,  no  sentiment,  in  memories  of 
childhood,  bu1  only  presenl  indignation  aroused  by  Aunty  Rosa's 
criminal  religiosity*. 

Presenl  seems  are  intensely  visualized.  Paragraphs  like 
those  at  the  beginning  of  -1/  //><  End  <>f  tin  Passag\  produce 
7^a~ri  ineradicable  impression  of  the  hardship  of  the  hot  season  in 
India:  and  one  feels,  at  the  same  time,  the  author's  delighl  in 
his  selection  of  characteristic  and  suggestive  detail.  One  feels 
too  and  shares  his  sympathy  with  the  persons  condemned  to  lead 
this  life,  or  choosing  to  lead  it  rather  than  give  way  to  others 
less  able  to  endure  its  terrors. 

Kipling's  intensity  expresses  itself  in  the  choice  of  characters 


2  "There  is  a  lol  of  living  devil  in  Kipling,"  said  Stevenson.  "It  is 
his  quick  beating  pulse  that  gives  him  a  position  very  much  apart.  Even 
with  his  love  of  journalistic  effect,  there  is  a  tide  of  life  through  it  all." 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  FIRST  PEBIOD        123 

— intensely,  living,  active,  effective,  self-assertive.  The  reader, 
again,  is  conscious  of  Kipling's  sympathy  with  these  persons, 
even  in  defiance  of  accepted  morals ;  and  of  his  delight  in  his 
discovery  of  their  characteristic  gestures  and  their  slang  or 
jargon.  Though,  here,  at  times,  one  intensity  clashes  with 
another:  Kipling's  own  personality  shines  too  clearly  through 
that  of  his  creatures. 

Kipling  delights  to  depict  intense  emotion — tragic  or  comic 
or  sentimental;  elemental  emotions,  which  stand  out  clearly, 
require  no  hair-splitting  analysis.  Here  his  intensity  often  takes 
the  peculiarly  Anglo-Saxon  form  of  repression  or  belittling  of 
emotion,  resulting  in  those  breaks  in  mood  which  are  his  chief 
defect.  These  are  due  also  to  an  intense  conviction  of  the  reality 
of  emotion,  to  a  strong  personal  prejudice  against  anything  like 
/V.  sentiment,  which  would  permit  the  enjoyment  or  the  inducing 
Aof  emotion  for  its  own  sake. 

You  feel  the  intense  personality  of  Kipling  in  every  phase . 
of  structure.  You  are  convinced  that  he  believes  his  own  stories, 
that  he  is  not  merely  playing  with  you  or  perforn^ig  a  tour  de 
force.  He  openly  asserts  his  own  presence  by  the  use  of  the 
pronoun  of  the  first  person,  and  by  frequent  comment ;  and  even 
when  the  story  is  purely  dramatic  in  form,  personality  asserts 
itself  in  the  emotional  quality,  as  in  The  Gadsbys,  or  in  implied 
moral  interpretation,  as  in  The  Hill  of  Illusion.  The  intense 
realization  of  narrators  and  audience ;  the  connection  of  story 
and  story  by  recurring  characters,  are  further  assertion  of  the 
author 's  personality. 

The  internal  structure  of  Kipling's  stories  may  be  described 
as,  in  part,  the  result  of  the  conflict  of  the  author's  intense  per- 
sonality on  the  one  side,  and  his  intense  sense  of  fact  on  the 


124  hiri  ING    l  HI    8T0B1    u  l:l  I  I  B 

other,  a  conflicl  of  subjective  and  objective,  of  Belf  with  the 
world  outside.  For  though  Kipling  can,  at  will,  make  effective 
use  of  dramatic  and  impersonal  methods,  he  is.  in  general, 
aeither  severely  dramatic  aor  severely  impersonal.  His  oarra 
tive  is.  mi  the  cunt  racy,  highly  personalized.  He  intervenes  in 
his  stories  oo1  only  to  admonish,  to  comment,  to  take  sides,  hut 
als<,  to  explain,  to  put  us  in  possession  of  accessary  information, 
as  regards  character  or  antecedent  action,  by  means  of  the 
highly  undramatic  method  of  summary.  He  has.  moreover,  qo 
prejudice  againsl  indirecl  discourse — his  version  of  the  speeches 
instead  of  the  speeches  themselves,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
drama. 

There  are,  again,  traces  of  a  conflicl  between  intensity  and 
sense  of  form.  For  the  impatience,  the  rapid  personal  rhythm, 
so  to  speak,  of  this  intense  character,  is  reflected  in  the  sliced 
of  the  narrative — that  is  to  say  in  the  short  sentences  and  crowd- 
ing minor  incidents,  in  the  hrevity  of  the  events,  in  the  prefer- 
ence of  the  movement  of  a  scene  to  the  immobility  of  a  situation, 
in  a  ceitain0neoherence  of  method,  a  skipping  about  from  one 
subject  to  another,  in  the  general  tendency  to  write  anecdote 
or  condensed  long-story;  to  take  the  nearest  way,  which  is  sum- 
mary, rather  than  to  translate  painfully  character  and  event  into 
concrete  detail,  and  withdraw,  destroying  all  evidence  of  the 
presence  of  a  workman.  For  summary  has  necessarily  a  per- 
sonal quality,  since  it  requires  and  implies  the  intervention  of 
the  author. 

There  is  intense  personality,  finally,  behind  some  of  those 
offences  against  unity  of  tone  which  we  have  now  so  often 
considered.  Thus  Kipling  sometimes  asserts  his  own  choice  of 
words  when   Mulvaney  or   Ortheris  should   be   speaking.      He 


GENEEAL  CHAEACTEBISTICS  OF  THE  FIEST  PEEIOD        125 

asserts  his  own  fear  of  sentiment  in  the  sudden  descents  to  the 
prosaic  level.  And  it  is  the  intensity  of  his  own  convictions 
concerning  such  matters  as  the  English  ignorance  of  India,  that 
leads  to  the  obnoxious  presence  of  the  Member  for  Lower  Toot- 
ing in  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy?  and  to  that  bitterness  of  tone 
quite  out  of  keeping  with  the  dominant  mood  of  the  story. 

It  is  this  same  intensity  of  conviction  that  chiefly  distin- 
guishes the  moral  interpretations  and  comments  of  the  stories. 
You  get  the  impression  that  Kipling  has  observed  widely  and 
felt  deeply,  not  that  he  has  reasoned  carefully.  His  cocksure- 
ness  whether  right  or  wrong  is  prejudice,  not  science.  His  satire 
is  marked  by^_mtense  antipathies,  as  to  missionaries,  M.  P.  's,  and 
respectable  hypocrites.  His  humor,  similarly,  is  marked  by 
intense  tolerance,  as  of  Thomas  Atkins,  the  junior  subaltern,  or 
the  woman  of  the  world.  In  a  philosophy  which  is  felt  rather 
than  reasoned,  there  are  naturally  contradictions;  it  is  not  sur- 
prising  that  Kipling  should  appear  as  advocate  of  The  System, 
and  at  the  same  time  glorify  the  self-assertion  of  the  individual 
in  conflict  with  it. 

Manifestly,  then,  in  spite  of  the  strong  tendency  to  moralize, 
in  spite  of  the  variety  and  certainty  of  opinion  which  we  found 
to  be  characteristics  of  Kipling's  work,  the  main  strength  of  his 
stories  does  not,  by  any  means,  lie  in  the  moral  significance.  He 
has  transcribed  a  vast  deal  of  life,  but  he  has  found  no  clue  to  its 
meaning.  /_The  natural  bent  of  his  genius  is  observation,  imag- 
ination, intensity,  not  thought,   not   intellect.      This  is  not,   of 


s  If  there  is  a  basis  of  truth  in  the  story  of  how  the  M.  P.  destroyed 
the  cadet  corps  in  Stalky  and  Company,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  Kip- 
ling formed  upon  this  incident  his  conception  of  members  of  parliament 
as  incarnations  of  stupidity,  ignorance,  and  bad  taste.  See  also  Little 
Foxes,  and  the  verses  concerning  ' '  Pagett,  M.P. ' ' 


12  i  B  //'/./  M.    I  ll  r    8T0B1    )i  1: 1 1  /  B 

course,  to  say  thai  he  is  lacking  in  intellectual  powers.  He  is 
a  genius.  Bui  he  is  qoI  ;i  genius  as  thinker,  or  even  as  poel 
or  oovelisl  of  the  primarily  intellectual  type.  This  is  merely 
to  state  the  sufficiently  obvious  fad  thai  he  is  nol  a  Carlyle,  an 
Emerson,  a  Goethe,  a  George  Eliot.  His  genius  does  nol  run 
to  abstracl  reasoning;  oor  does  it  run  to  thai  other  expression 
nt'  intellect  and  judgment,  to  sense  of  form.  I  mean  simply  thai 
his  special  strength  does  not  lie  in  form;  I  mean  thai  he  is  qo1 
for  sty]  i,  an  Addison  ;  thai  he  is  nol  for  structural  technique,  a 
Poe  or  a  Stevenson  or  a  Merimee  or  a  Maupassant.  The  same 
forces  which,  in  his  character  and  in  Ins  education  and  training, 
mad''  for  Realism,  for  Romance,  !'<>r  Intensity,  made  againsl 
Reason.  Any  school  education  must  obviously  aim  primarily 
at    tin'   training   nt'   the    intellect;    bul    some   studies   an'    more 

abstracl  than  others,  some  appeal  in  high  degree  to  tl motions. 

It  is  significanl  that  Beetle  was  a  failure  in  mathematics  and 
that  he  scorned  natural  history.  Manifestly  science  not  im- 
mediately applicable  1<>  human  life  did  not  interest  him.  Nor 
did  questions  of  conduct.  "  You  know."  said  the  school  chap- 
lain, "'I  don't  talk  alioui  ethics  and  moral  codes,  because  I  don't 
believe  that  the  young  of  the  human  animal  realises  what  they 
mean  for  some  years  to  come."  And  the  beloved  "Head,"  who 
was  quite  capable  of  setting  an  example  by  deeds  of  devotion 
and  courage,  once  saving  a  hoy's  life  at  the  very  greal  risk  of 
his  own.  even  the  beloved  Head  talked  with  the  old  hoys  rather 
as  man  of  tin-  world  than  as  an  idealist  in  ethics.  He  "was 
father-confessor  and  agent-general  to  them  all.... Young  blood 
who  had  stumbled  into  an  entanglemenl  with  a  pastry-cook's 
daughter  at  Plymouth;  experience  who  had  come  into  a  small 
legacy  hut   mistrusted  lawyers;  ambition  halting  at  cross-roads, 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD        127 

anxious  to  take  the  one  that  would  lead  him  farthest;  extrava- 
gance pursued  by  the  money-lender;  arrogance  in  the  thick  of 
a  regimental  row — each  carried  his  trouble  to  the  Head ;  and 
Chiron  showed  him,  in  language  quite  unfit  for  little  boys,  a 
quiet  and  safe  way  round,  out,  or  under."  Manifestly  this  is 
not  instruction  in  ethics,  m  principles  of  conduct,  in  ideals;  it 
is  merely  a  safe  guide  to  respectability,  to  just  the  kind  of  sham- 
ming that  Kipling  delighted  to  expose  when  he  found  it  in  people 
of  another  type.  Furthermore,  the  Head  in  his  dealings  with 
the  boys  frankly  discarded  consistency,  legality,  regularity,  as 
shibboleths  of  small  minds.  He  was  never  entangled  in  moral 
hesitations;  and  when  Stalky  and  Company  were  technically 
innocent  of  wrong-doing,  yet  essentially  guilty,  he  punished 
them  vigorously.  His  notion  was  that  if  law  and  reason  did 
not  provide  adequate  means  for  a  good  end,  the  thing  to  do  was 
to  step  outside  law  and  reason  and  reach  the  end  by  any  means 
that  came  to  hand.  The  school  chaplain  encouraged  the  same 
kind  of  thing.  It  was  with  his  connivance  that  Stalky  and  his 
friends  stopped  the  bullying  of  a  little  boy — a  highly  desirable 
end,  by  torturing  the  bullies — a  doubtful  and  manifestly  illegal- 
means.  In  the  last  story  of  the  book,  Stalky,  now  an  officer  of 
the  Indian  army,  accomplishes  laudable  results  by  similarly 
questionable  tactics.  If  these  stories  of  school  life  are  in  any 
sense  true,  they  are  exceedingly  interesting  accounts  of  the 
beginnings  of  that  characteristic  assertion  of  the  individual 
against  law,  order,  and  The  System. 

If,  then,  Kipling's  early  training  seems  to  have  made  for 
vigorous  action  in  a  seemingly  good  cause  rather  than  for  power 
to  estimate  causes,  for  deeds  rather  than  for  thought,  it  made 
at  the  same  time  for  the  development  of  creative  rather  than 


128  KIP1  ING   l  ill    8T0R1    WRITER 

of  critical  powers.  The  Head  encouraged  Beetle's  efforts  as 
editor  of  the  college  magazine  and  trained  him  for  letters  by 
turning  him  loose  in  his  library  and  stimulating  him  to  read 
and  taste  widely  rather  than  critically.  In  the  list  already 
quoted  there  occurs  bul  one  name  associated  primarily  with 
perfection  of  form,  the  name  of  Dryden.  Ami  while  the  boys 
were  compelled  to  study  Horace  and  Virgil,  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  they  were  aware  of  their  beauties  of  form  and  style 
or  desired  to  imitate  them.  Sense  of  form  seems  to  have  been 
restricted,  with  Beetle,  to  delighl  in  words,  Ins  "beastly  profes- 
sional" or  "filthy  technical "  talk:  ami  he  delighted  in  King's 
vocabulary  of  invective,  storing  up  adjectives  for  future  use. 
However,  we  do  find  Beetle  developing  his  art  by  practice  in 
oral  narrative  controlled  by  the  effect  on  his  audience.  A  mas- 
ter heard  him  telling  a  story  in  the  twilight  in  a  whisper.  And 
Orrin.  a  school-mate,  said  just  as  he  opened  the  door,  "Shut  up 
Beetle;  it's  too  beastly."  Questioned  afterward.  Beetle  ex- 
plained that  he  had  go1  the  notion  from  .Mrs.  Oliphant's 
Beleaguered  City.  "Only."  he  went  on.  •'instead  of  a  city  I 
made  it  the  College  in  a  fog — besieged  by  idiosts  of  dead  hoys, 
who  hauled  chaps  out  of  their  beds  in  the  dormitory.  All  the 
names  are  quite  real.  You  tell  it  in  a  whisper,  you  know  with 
the  uames.  <  >rrin  didn't  like  it  one  little  hit.  None  of  'em  have 
ever  let  me  finish  it.  It  gets  just  awful  at  the  end  part."  Here 
is  the  typical  Kipling  combination  of  imagination  and  fact,  "all 
the  nanus  are  quite  real."  and  the  place  is  the  familiar  dormi- 
tory. Here  is  the  obvious  device  of  saving  the  best  for  the  end. 
And  added  to  this,  the  typical  intensity  of  effect,  the  desire  to 
produce  a  sensation  in  the  audience.  If  this  is  substantially 
true   as  autobiography,  as  an   account   of  early   practice,   it    is 


GENEEAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OE  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       \12'.i 

extremely  interesting.      And  even  as  an  account  of  the  methods 
of  the  mature  Kipling,  aged  thirty-two,  it  is  very  significant. 

Journalism    again,    the    next    step    in    Kipling's    training, 
though  an  excellent  school  for  the  young  writer,  can  hardly  be 
calculated  to  develop  the  larger  critical  and  intellectual  powers 
or  the  sense  of  formal  excellence.      No  subeditor,   I   judge,   is 
precisely  encouraged  to  form  his  own  opinions.      His  business  is 
rather  to  express  the  opinions  of  his  paper  or  to  form  new  ones 
of  his   own   on  the   basis   of   its   established   principles.       Such 
opinions  must  inevitably  have  something  of  the  nature  of  snap 
judgments ;  the}'  cannot  be  the  result  of  long  deliberation,   of 
careful  collecting  and  weighing  of  evidence.      Yet  they  must  be 
set  forth  with  emphasis,  with  an  air  of  perfect  certainty  and 
assurance.      They  will  concern  themselves  with  a  multitude  of 
subjects,  yet  they  will  be  limited  to  questions  of  the  day,  con- 
cerned with  current  events,  with  shop  and  gossip.      They  will 
be  the  swift  judgments  of  a  man  immersed  in  the  vivid  details 
of  actual  life,  political  and  social.      They  are  likely  to  be  some- 
what sensational,  to  savor  of  jingoism  and  the  divorce  court. 
I       The   subeditor,   again,   has   not   much   time   to   ponder   over 
I  matters  of  form ;  he  must  be  interesting,  he  must  be  more  or  less 
/  intelligible,   his  work  must  wear  a  semblance   of  truth.      But 
"\inevitably  he  works  for  immediate  and  for  temporary  effects. 
He  must  write  in  the  manner  of  the  present  moment;  he  must 
/avoid  a  "literary''  or  a  "classical"  manner,  or  the  higher  levels 
I  of  prose.      He  must  get  up  special  vocabularies,  the  vocabulary 
\  of  the  art  critic,  the  dramatic  critic,  the  sporting  editor,  the 
I  race-track  reporter,  the  society  reporter,  writing  in  each  case 
'  for  a  special  audience,  aiming  to  be  intelligible  to  that  audience, 
and  paying  it  and  himself  the  subtle  compliment  of  being  in- 
telligible to  it  alone. 


KIPLING   I  III    8T0B1    WBU  I  l: 

[nevitably  habits  acquired  as  subeditor  will  Leave  their  mark 
on  the  technique  of  the  short-story  writer,  [nevitably  his  moral 
interpretation  of  Life  can  be  summed  up  as  we  have  summed  up 
Kipling's.  He  satirizes  respectable  hypocrites,  women,  mar- 
riage;  he   is  concerned   with   those   who   play   tennis   with   the 

enth  commandment,  he  is  concerned  with  the  English  admin- 
istration of  India  in  all  its  parts,  with  the  English  conflicl  with 
the  natives  or  with  Russia.  But  he  develops  no  moral  system,  no 
large  general  principles  of  conduct.  "To  do  one's  duty,  to  Live 
stoically,  to  Live  cleanly,  to  live  cheerfully,"  arc  the  old-fashioned 
virtues  which,  as  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  says,  he  "nobly  enforces"; 
but,  as  we  have  seen,  he  expressly  condemns  any  thoughtful 
questioning  as  to  what  one's  duly  may  be. 

He  condemns,  in  the  same  way,  all  discussion  of  theory  and 
of  technique.  He  is  opposed  to  the  attitude  of  the  critic  and 
the  theorist.  His  distrust  of  their  activities  is  clearly  expressed 
in  the  "ballad"  of  The  Conundrum  of  the  Workshop,  which 
implies  that  every  man  is  a  law  unto  himself.  Let  him  produce, 
let  him  paint,  let  him  write,  and  leave  the  critics  to  talk  vainly 
and  unintelligently  of  the  aims  of  art  and  of  its  history  and  its 
eternal  laws. 

It  was  characteristic  that  Irving,  that  Poe,  that  Stevenson, 
that  Maupassant,  should  have  left  us  theoretical  and  critical 
discussions  of  the  technique  of  fiction  and  the  work  of  their 
predecessors  and  contemporaries;  it  is  characteristic  that  Kip- 
Ling  should  have  nothing  to  say  on  these  matters.  In  all  his 
work  there  is  scarcely  a  critical  passage.  You  cannot  construct 
for  him,  as  you  can  from  even  Chaucer's  obiter  dicta,  anything 
like  an  esthetic  creed.  He  mentions,  indeed,  with  admiration 
the   descriptive   powers   of  Zola   and   Poe.      He   writes   of   his 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OE  THE  FIRST  PERIOD        131 

enthusiasm  for  Mark  Twain.  He  praises  the  rhythm  of  Bret 
Harte's  prose.  There  is,  indeed,  a  significant  sentence  in  From 
Sea  to  Sea  which  does  imply  study  of  form:  "A  writing-man," 
he  says,  "who  plays  with  shadows  and  dresses  dolls  that  others 
ma}'  laugh  at  their  antics,  draws  help  and  comfort  and  new 
methods  of  working  old  ideas  from  the  stored  shelves  of  a 
library."  Yet  he  may,  even  here,  have  been  thinking  of  the 
practice  of  writing-men  other  than  himself.  And  there  is  no 
other  evidence  that  he  was  given  to  contemplation  of  methods, 
and  none  whatever  that  he  regarded  form  as  an  essential  element. 
Those  shortcomings  in  the  matter  of  form,  to  which  attention 
has  been  already  called,  are  then  natural  enough.  Formal 
excellence  is  with  Kipling  not  a  matter  of  sustained  effort,  of 
large  planning,  of  the  architecture  of  the  whole.  His  special 
excellences  are,  precisely,  not  "proportion,  fitness,  coherence, 
harmony,  and  the  like. ' '  Nor  is  there  in  his  work  any  persistent 
/>  attack  on  the  special  problems  of  short-story  technique.  Writ- 
I  ing  as  a  journalist  he  avoids  subtleties,  he  utters  direct  comments 
\  and  explanations  and  so  spares  his  readers  the  trouble  of  draw- 
ing inferences.  On  the  contrary,  he  hits  them  hard,  knocks 
them  down,  chokes  them  with  emotion.  Writing  for  temporary 
£  effects,  he  does  not  concern  himself  with  the  things  that  are 
not  noticed  in  a  single  rapid  reading.  Hence  the  familiar  fail- 
ure to  hold  the  proper  level  of  tone  or  impression  or  style,  the 
curious  descents  to  prose,  the  strange  false  connotations,  by 
means  of  which  Kipling  contrives  to  belittle  an  impressive  story 
as  he  tells  it.  And  so,  while  he  fulfils  admirably  enough  the 
short-story  requirement  of  a  sufficient  and  impartial  elaboration 
of  all  the  elements  of  narration,  Kipling  falls  short  of  complete 
translation  of  these  elements  into  concrete  and  suggestive  terms, 


L32  KIPLING  I  ill    8T0B1    n  Ell  I  i; 

falls  shorl  in  the  construction  of  the  storj  as  a  whole,  and  in 
the  construction  of  greal  scenes.  And  while  thanks  perhaps 
mainly  to  temperament,  he  preserves  well  enough  the  unities 
of  time  and  place  and  action,  he  sometimes  Tails  in  the  matter 
<>\'  unity  of  tone  or  impression.  These  are  the  qualities  and 
defects  of  a  genius  whose  natural  bent,  accentuated  by  training, 
is  Sense  of  Pact,  Imagination,  Intensity,  rather  than  Reason  and 
Judgment. 


PAET  TWO 

THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

In  1891  Kipling  left  England  for  a  voyage  to  South  Africa, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  Ceylon,  and  thence  to  visit  his 
parents  in  Lahore.  His  biographers  record  no  other  return 
to  India.  After  his  arrival  in  England  he  was  married  to 
Miss  Balestier  of  New  York.  After  a  visit  to  Japan,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Kipling  established  their  home  at  Brattleboro,  Vermont, 
where  they  lived  from  August,  1892,  to  September,  1896.  Dur- 
ing these  four  years  Kipling  made  three  visits  to  England  to 
see  his  parents,  who  had  left  India.  Many  Inventions,  begun  in 
1890,  was  completed  and  published  in  1893 ;  The  Jungle  Booh 
was  published  in  1894,  The  Second  Jungle  Book  in  1895. 


't* 


i  IIAI'TEK  V 

THE   TRANSITIONAL   TECHNIQUE 

To  call   the  sec I   period  a    period  of  transition   is   not    to 

imply  that  the  others,  as  well,  were  not  periods  of  transition. 
All  through  the  first  period  Kipling's  narrative  art  was  under 
going  changes  which  become  evident  as  we  place  tht  volumes  in 
chronological  order,  or  as  we  compare  the  last,  Life's  Handicap, 
with  the  first.  Plain  Tales  from  tin  Mills.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  some  development  should  be  visible  when  we  remember 
that,  when  Lift  's  Handicap  was  published.  Kipling  was  but 
twenty-six. 

%/ On  the  whole  he  remains  loyal  to  India  and  to  his  own  people; 
Aral  after  leaving  India,  by  force  of  reminiscence,  so  that  some  of 
the  later  stories  mark  the  beginning  of  the  habit  of  dealing  with  a 
remembered  land  and  people,  rather  than  those  in  his  immediate 
field  of  vision.  Extend  this  habit  to  the  use  of  the  memory  of 
others,  to  national  memory,  and  the  door  is  opened  to  the  com- 
bination of  past  and  present  peculiar  to  the  later  Puck  of  Pook's 
Hill  and  Rewards  and  Fairies.  Similarly,  such  a  story  as 
Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  with  its  romantic,  side  by  side  with 
its  realistic,  aspects,  offers  an  escape  from  life,  thus  beginning 
a  tendency  which  reaches  its  climax  in  VThey."  Again,  the  last 
two  stories  in  Life's  Handicap  extend  Kipling's  sympathetic 
understanding  to  the  ape  and  the  elephant,  thus  preparing  the 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  135 

way  for  the  Jungle  Books.  In  no  significant  story,  however, 
does  the  scene  shift  from  India  or  deal  with  persons  other  than 
Anglo-Indians. 

(/There  is  no  observable  tendency  to  develop  new  character- 
types,  or  to  depict  more  complex  personalities,  and  no  evidence 
of  greater  grasp  of  character.  There  is  no  visible  increase  in 
profundity  of  study  of  emotion  and  motive. 
tA/"There  is,  however,  a  certain  decrease  in  the  personal  quality 
foi  the  narrative.  The  author  appears  less  f requentlyj  and  more 
subtly ;  there  is  less  attempt  at  flattering  self-portraiture ;  and 
mannerisms  grow  less  frequent  and  less  marked ;  ' '  That  is  an- 
other story"  disappears  altogether.  The  tales  grow  steadily 
longer  and  more  elaborate.  The  memorable  stories,  the  stories 
commonly  included  in  collections  of  specimens,  and  on  the  whole 
the  best  short-stories,  are  to  be  found  in  the  later  volumes. 
There  can  be,  of  course,  no  general  agreement  as  to  which  the 
best  stories  arc  But  in  general  it  can  be  roughly  stated  that 
Plain  Tales,  Soldiers  Three,  Black  and  White,  and  Under  the 
Deodars  contain  nothing  equal  to  The  Man  Who  Would  be 
King  (in  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw),  to  Wee  Willie  Winkle  (in 
the  collection  of  that  name),  or  to  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna 
Mulvaney,  The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  The  Man  Who  Was, 
Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  On  Greenhow  Hill,  At  the  End  of 
the  Passage,  The  Mark  of  the  Beast,  and  The  Return  of  Imray 
— all  in  Life's  Handicap.  Whatever  views  we  may  hold  in 
regard  to  individual  stories,  we  must  admit  that  Life's  Handi- 
cap marks  a  general  advance  in  narrative  art  beyond  the  earlier 
volumes.  And  we  can  bring  home  and  illustrate  that  advance 
by  the  comparison  of  later  with  earlier  treatments  of  similar 
themes  of,  for  example,  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  with  Beyond 


L36  KIPLING    I  III    8T0BI    \\  EITEE 

th<   Pale,  a  story  In  Plain  Tales,  which  deals  with  the  union  of 

an  Englishman  with  a   native  woman.      Tl arlier  story   has 

more  cruelty  and  less  pathos,  Less  of  the  ideal  quality,  oothing 
of  the  Bentimenl  of  heroism,  self-sacrifice,  and  domesticity,  of 
the  later.  Ami  the  earlier  has  a  much  less  complex  technique; 
it  is.  one  mighl  say,  anecdote  in  a  state  of  transition  to  short- 
iry. 

We  have  noted  the  beginnings  of  the  "suggested  short- 
story,"  the  type  of  tale  in  which  certain  details  of  action  and 
dialogue  are  given,  from  which  the  reader  is  expected  to  con- 
struct  the  story  or  the  situation  itself.  Examples  were  Kid 
napped,  and  To  B<  Filed  for  Ueferena  {Plain  Tales),  Th(  If  ill 
of  Illusion  (Under  //>•  Deodars),  and  His  Majesty  th<  King 
(Wet  W'illit  Win/,  it  .  These  are  mere  beginnings;  and  the 
trick  is  nut  carried  further  in  Lifi  's  Handicap;  but  it  is  to  be 
in  later  periods,  and  these  early  experiments  should  be  kept  in 
mind. 

V/The  same  thing  is  t  rue  of  the  habil  of  telling  stories  in  slang  or 
jarL'-on,  which  is  at  times  so  highly  specialized  as  to  be  unintelli- 
gible to  the  uninitiated  reader.  The  most  striking  examples  are 
s,  to  be  found  in  /'lain  'I'ahs;  Life's  Handicap  clearly  makes  con- 
cession to  an  English  audience.  The  tendency  decreases,  then. 
but  it  does  not  die  out,  and  in  the  later  periods  asserts  itself 
with  renewed  vigor.  1 

Mural  interpretation,  finally,  is  more  subtly  managed.  While 
passing  comment  does  nol  cease,  the  formulated  and  detachable 
moral  does.  The  later  stories  do  not  begin,  like  the  earlier,  with 
a  text.  There  is  less  preoccupation  with  Anglo-Indian  Society, 
less  tennis  with  the  seventh  commandment.  There  is  a  tendency 
for  Humor,   with   its  more   human   and   kindly   attitude,   to  dis- 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  137 

place  Satire,  with  its  love  for  the  seamy  side  and  its  violent 
antipathies.  Yet  satire  does  not,  by  any  means,  disappear. 
J  On  the  whole,  if  one  had  the  misfortune  to  be  forced  to 
4nm  up  the  tendencies  of  the  first  period  in  a  single  formula, 
one  might  venture  to  say  that  an  increase  in  imagination  was 
observable,  a  slight  increase  in  sense  of  form,  together  with  a 
decrease  in  the  intensity  of  self-assertion,  and  the  beginning  of 
a  new  freedom  from  an  overpowering  sense  of  fact. 
— ^  In  the  second  period  these  tendencies  become  more  marked, 
and  several  important  new  ones  take  their  rise.  So  great, 
indeed,  are  the  changes,  that  it  can  be  justly  characterized  as  a 
Period  of  Transition.  Only  three  volumes  are  concerned— 
twenty-nine  stories.  The  first  of  these  volumes  is  Many  Inven- 
tions. It  contains  some  admirable  stories;  but  to  the  student  of 
Kipling's  art  it  is  mainly  interesting  as  forming  the  connecting 
link  between  the  first  period  and  the  third.  For,  of  the  fourteen 
stories,  three  look  mainly  backward  toward  the  earlier  manner; 
three  are  Janus-faced,  looking  both  forward  and  back ;  and  the 
remaining  eight  look  mainly  forward,  more  or  less  definitely 
preparing  the  way  for  what  is  to  come. 

The  scene  of  all  three  of  the  backward-looking  stories  is  laid 
in  India;  all  of  them  deal  with  the  Army.  The  Lost  Legion 
is  the  story  of  how  a  detachment  of  English  cavalry  was  aided 
in  making  a  capture  by  the  ghosts  of  a  lost  native  regiment, 
which  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy  at  the  time  of  the  Mutiny  and 
had  been  destroyed  by  the  natives  who  remained  true  to  the 
English.  Love  o'  Women  and  His  Private  Honor  are  the  last, 
of  the  Soldiers  Three  stories.1 


i  There    are    but    faint    shadows    of    Ortheris    and    Mulvaney    in    Garm 
{Actions  and  Reactions). 


138  KIPLING  THE  STORY   WRITES, 

The   last,   thai    is,   excepl    the   intensely   amusing   Mulvaney 

Story    of    My    Lord    thi     Elephant,    which    harks    hack    to    various 

Mulvaney  stories  and  to  the  elephanl  story  of  Moti  Guj,  Muti- 
neer (in  Life's  Handicap),  yel  prepares  the  way,  by  its  more 
careful  study  of  the  psychology  of  the  elephant,  for  the  Jungle 

Books.       Thus    it     is,    as    Mulvaney    calls    the    elephant.     Double 

Ends,  or  in  the  more  classical  metaphor,  Janus-faced.  In  the 
two  other  stories  of  the  sorl  the  scene  is,  for  tin-  firs!  time.  Laid 
in  London.     But  .1  Conferenci  of  thi  Powers jdeals  wholly  with 

army  life  in  India:  a  group  of  young  officers  meet  in  Kipling's 
rooms  and  astonish  a  veteran  English  novelist  by  their  stories 
of  adventure,  thus  harking  back  to  the  earlier  subaltern  stories. 
And  Om  V'niv  of  thi  Question  is  a  letter,  written  from  the 
Northbrook  Club,  London,  by  Shafiz  Ullah  Khan  to  his  friend 
Ka/.i  Jamal-ud-Din  in  India,  pointing  out  the  defects  of  the 
English  and  their  government.  It  continues  the  studies  of  the 
English  from  the  native  point  of  view,  begun  in  Lispeth,  and 
comes  much  close]'  to  the  original  tradition  represented  by  the 
Turkish  Spy,  Voltaire's  L'Ingenu,  and  Addison's  Four  Indian 
Kings.  In  a  later  story,  .1  Sahib's  War  (Traffics  and  Discov- 
eries), Kipling  once  more  criticizes  English  affairs  from  an 
outsider's  point  of  view. 

Of  the  stories  in  Muni;  Inn  ntions  which  look  mainly  forward 
— first  experiments  in  motifs,  characters,  or  methods,  which  were 
to  he  developed  later  on — The  Finest  Stori/  in  the  World  deals 
with  the  reincarnation,  as  a  London  banker's  clerk,  of"  a  man 
who  had  been  successively  a  Greek  galley  slave  and  a  Viking 
oarsman.  It  thus  prepares  the  way  for  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill 
and  Rewards  and  Fair'ns.  A  Matter  of  Fact,  the  tale  of  a  sea- 
monster  and   an   American   reporter,   is  Kipling's  first  definite 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  139 

attack  in  fiction  on  the  American  character.  Both  these  are, 
like  On  Greenhow  Hill  and  The  Man  Who  Would  be  King, 
stories  of  stories.  The  Children  of  the  Zodiac  is  the  first  experi- 
ment in  allegory.  The  Disturber  of  Traffic  looks  back  to  the 
studies  in  pathological  psychology,  but  mainly  forward  as  the 
first  of  the  stories  to  deal  with  mechanical  devices  and  to 
personify  ships.  In  Judson  and  the  Empire  the  mechanical 
part  is  a  little  more  elaborate.  Brugglesmith  and  Badalia 
Herodsfoot,  studies  of  low  life  in  London,  are  in  a  vein  which, 
fortunately,  was  to  be  worked  no  further.  Brugglesmith,  how- 
ever, is  interesting  as  introducing2  the  character  of  McPhee,  the 
chief  engineer  of  the  Breslau,  who  tells  the  story  of  Bread  Upon 
flic  Waters  in  The  Day's  Work.  In  the  Eukh  is,  finally,  from 
the  historical  point  of  view,  the  most  interesting  tale  in  the  vol- 
ume, for  it  is  the  first  of  the  Jungle  stories.  It  has  to  do  with 
the  wooing  and  marriage  of  Mowgli,  thus  introducing  him  at  a 
later  age  than  that  at  which  he  appears  in  the  Jungle  Books. 
But  he  has  the  same  habits,  the  same  power  over  the  animals, 
the  same  natural  virtues,  and  the  same — or  more  than  the  same 
— charm.  He  enters  the  story  like  a  naked  god,  Faunus  him- 
self, "crowned  with  a  wreath  of  the  tasselled  blossoms  of  the 
white  convolvulus  creeper."  He  commended  himself  to  Gis- 
borne,  the  warden  of  the  Forest,  by  "his  strength,  fleetness,  and 
silence  of  foot,  and  his  ever-ready  open  smile ;  his  ignorance  of 
all  forms  of  ceremony  and  salutations,  and  the  childlike  tales 
that  he  would  tell ...  of  what  the  game  was  doing  in  the  rukh." 
Again,  there  is  a  note  in  the  prose  style,  a  suggestion  of  beauty 
and  rhythm,  uncommon  in  the  earlier  stories.      For  example : 


2  Unless  he  is  the  unnamed  chief  engineer  "who  told  the  story   of  The 
Lang  Men  o'  Larut   (Life's  Handicap). 


L40  KIPLING   l  111    8T0B1    117,7/  /  B 

'Then  came  the  Rains  with  a  roar,  and  the  rukh  was  blotted 
out  in  fetch  after  Eetch  of  warm  mist,  and  the  broad  Leavea 
drummed  the  oighl  through  under  the  big  drops;  and  there 
was  a  noise  of  running  water,  ami  of  juicy  green  stuff  crackling 
where  the  wind  struck  it.  ami  the  Lightning  wove  patterns 
behind  the  dense  matting  of  the  foliage  till  the  sun  broke 
loose  again  ami  the  rukh  stood  with  hot  tlanks  smoking  to  the 
newly  washed  sky.*'  Bu1  the  style  does  not  hold  this  Level.  It 
descends  as  of  old  to  shop  and  jargon  and  the  jerky  emphasis. 
Even  the  godlike  Mowgli  speaks  "with  a  grin."  Ami  even  the 
godlike  Mowgli  is  swallowed  up  in  the  great  English  system  and 
In  comes,  under  Gisborne,  a  paid  member  of  the  Forest  Service, 
sborne  himself,  although  he  is  an  unusual  Kipling  hero,  hold- 
ing it  a  sin  to  kill  even  the  wild  animals  of  the  jungle  unless 
there  was  need,  is.  of  course,  before  all  else  a  devoted  official, 
enduring  like  Bummil  and  his  friends  in  Ai  ih<  End  of  tin 
Possogel  solitude,  hardships  and  privation,  too  deeply  interested 
in  work  to  think  of  luxuries.  The  System  itself  is  expounded 
and  praised  in  the  opening  disquisition,  beginning,  "Of  the 
wheels  of  public  service  that  turn  under  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment, there  is  none  more  important  than  the  Department  of 
Woods  ami  Forests."  The  succeeding  information,  in  regard  to 
the  activities  and  way  of  life  of  its  members,  and  their  wisdom, 
is  all  implied  in  the  story  that  follows.  Hut  Kipling,  accordinir 
to  his  old  habit,  must  comment  and  explain.  And  he  must. 
as  usual,  make  his  villain  a  respectable  hypocrite:  Abdul  Gafur, 
•  •rue's  butler  and  the  father  of  the  girl  whom  Mowgli  weds, 
is  a  thief  and  a  coward  and  would-be  murderer,  who  looks  down 
on  .Mowgli  because  of  his  lack  of  caste  and  manners.  Mowgli 
himself  is  prepared  to  carry  on  the  tradition  of  the  alien  critic. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE     .  HI 

to  comment  on  civilization  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  natural 
man.  Observing  Gisborne's  simple  household  arrangements, 
"So  much  trouble  to  eat,"  he  says,  "and  so  much  trouble  to  lie 
down  after  }tou  have  eaten!"  The  directness  of  his  wooing 
recalls  that  of  Voltaire's  Ingenu.  As  critic  of  civilization  he  is 
to  go  much  further  in  the  Jungle  Book  stories. 

Of  these  stories  Kipling  seems,  characteristically,  to  have  a 
foreknowledge.  They  are  to  account  for  that  special  hatred  of 
the  tiger,  to  which  Mowgli  here  gives  utterance.  And  they  are 
to  elaborate  what  he  tells  Abdul -Gafur's  daughter  of  his  life: 

I  was  a  wolf  among  wolves ...  till  a  time  came  when  Those  of  the 
jungle  bade  me  go  because  I  was  a  man.  .  .  .  The  beasts  of  the  jungle  bade 
me  go,  but  these  four  [wolves]  followed  me  because  I  was  their  brother. 
Then  was  I  a  herder  of  cattle  among  men,  having  learned  their  language. 
.  . .  The  herds  paid  toll  to  my  brothers  till  a  woman  .  .  .  saw  me  playing  by 
night  with  my  brethren  in  the  crops.  They  said  that  I  was  possessed  of 
devils,  and  drove  me  from  that  village  with  sticks  and  stones. .  .  .  From 
village  to  village  I  went, ...  a  herder  of  cattle,  a  tender  of  buffaloes, .  .  . 
but  there  was  no  man  that  dared  lift  a  finger  against  me  twice." 

"Mowgli,"  says  Kipling  in  Tiger!  Tiger!  "years  afterward 
became  a  man  and  married.  But  that  is  a  story  for  grown- 
ups"— the  story,  that  is,  that  we  have  just  been  considering. 
The  stories  of  the  Jungle  Books,  then,  deal  with  the  childhood 
and  youth  of  Mowgli  and  were  written  primarily  not  for  grown- 
ups but  for  children.  In  the  first  and  second  Jungle  Books 
there  are  in  all  fifteen  stories.  Only  eight  of  them  deal  with 
Mowgli  and  the  jungle.  They  are  not,  in  the  earlier  editions, 
arranged  in  chronological  order.  An  attempt  at  such  an 
arrangement  is  necessary  for  a  proper  understanding  of  the 
technique  of  the  individual  stories. 


I  12  KIPLING   I II I:  si  OBI    WBI1  I  B 

The  firsl  Btory,  Mowgli's  Brothers,  tells  how  Mowgli  escaped 
Shere  Kahn  the  tiger,  came  to  the  cave  of  the  wolves,  was 
accepted  by  them,  and  Introduced  to  the  wolf-pack.  The  events 
of  two  Later  stories  precede  the  end  of  Mowgli's  Brothers:  Kaa's 
Hunting  relates  how  Mowgli  was  stolen  by  the  liandar-log,  tin* 
monkey  folk,  taken  to  Cold  Lairs,  and  saved  in  a  splendid  fighl 
by  his  friends  Baloo,  the  boar,  Uaghoera,  the  panther,  and  Kaa, 
the  python,  whom  the  Kite  had  told  of  his  predicament.  Ilmr 
Fear  Cann  is  a  "Pourquoi,"  a  '"How"  or  "Why"  story,  in 
which,  when  peace  had  been  proclaimed  because  of  a  great 
drouth  and  all  the  animals  were  gathered  by  the  river,  Ilathi 
the  elephant,  master  of  the  Jungle,  told  how  the  tiger  was 
marked  with  his  stripes  by  the  plants  and  creepers  as  a  punish- 
ment for  killing  the  first  buck.  These  are  the  main  events  of 
the  years  of  Mowgli's  education  in  the  lore  of  the  jungle  by 
his  friends  Baloo  and  Bagheera.  They  are  followed  by  the 
conclusion  of  the  first  story,  Mowgli's  Brothers,  which  tells  how 
Akela.  the  leader  of  the  wolf-pack,  was  deposed,  Shere  Kahn 
claimed  Mowgli  as  his  prey,  and  Mowgli  broke  with  the  pack 
and  frightened  his  enemies  with  fire.  Tiger!  Tiger!  takes  up 
the  thread  at  this  point.  Mowgli  went  to  a  village,  was  adopted 
by  a  family  which  had  lost  a  son  in  the  Jungle,  showed  that 
he  knew  more  about  the  wild  animals  than  Buldeo,  the  hunter 
of  the  village,  and  so  made  him  his  enemy.  He  was  set  to 
herding  cattle.  Learning  from  his  faithful  brothers  of  the 
wolf-pack  that  Shere  Kahn  was  hunting  for  him,  Mowgli  with 
the  help  of  the  wolves  divided  the  herd,  and  sent  half  up 
and  half  down  a  deep  ravine  where  Shere  Kahn  was  sleeping. 
trampling  him  to  death.  Buldeo,  the  hunter,  found  the  body 
and  claimed  the  skin,  until  Akela  came  to  Mowgli's  aid.     Where- 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  143 

fore  Mowgli  on  his  return  to  the  village,  was  stoned  and  driven 
off.  He  went  back  to  the  wolf -pack  with  the  tiger's  skin,  and 
they  wished  him  to  lead  them.  But  he  preferred  to  hunt  alone. 
Letting  in  the  Jungle  continues  this  episode,  and  tells  how 
Mowgli  avenged  himself  on  the  villagers,  who  had  stoned  him 
and  bound  and  condemned  to  death  his  foster-parents,  and  also 
on  Buldeo,  who  had  gone  out  to  kill  him,  by  persuading  his 
friends  the  elephants  to  destroy  the  village.  Then  follow  two 
episodes  which  cannot  be  definitely  placed.  One  is  the  story  of 
The  King's  Ankus,  the  tale  of  the  jewelled  elephant-goad  which 
Mowgli  took  from  Cold  Lairs,  and  which,  as  the  cobra  said,  was 
death,  since  it  caused  the  killing  of  six  men  before  Mowgli  re- 
turned it  to  the  treasure-vault.  The  other  episode  is  the  story 
of  the  Reel  Dog,  beasts  feared  by  all  the  jungle.  At  Kaa's  sug- 
gestion Mowgli  led  them,  pursuing  him,  among  the  bees,  he 
himself  leaping  over  a  cliff  into  the  river  where  Kaa  awaited  him. 
Most  of  the  Dhole,  or  Red  Dog,  were  destroyed  by  the  bees ;  the 
rest  met  their  fate  further  down  the  river  where  Mowgli  with  his 
knife  and  the  wolves  awaited  them.  In  this  splendid  battle 
Akela,  the  old  leader  of  the  pack,  was  slain.  The  Spring  Run- 
ning, finally,  is  not  a  story  at  all  but  rather  a  psychological  study, 
a  kind  of  Pervigilium  Veneris  of  the  Jungle,  showing  how  one 
spring,  two  years  after  the  Red  Dog  episode,  when  Mowgli  was 
seventeen,  his  fancy  turned  to  thoughts  of  his  own  kind.  It 
prepares  the  way  for  In  the  Rukh. 

The  Mowgli  stories  may  then  be  regarded  as  the  chapters 
of  the  romance  of  Mowgli.  The  division  of  the  whole  into 
stories  does  not  follow  the  natural  divisions  of  the  narrative : 
for  some  stories  contain  more,  some  less,  than  a  single  episode, 
^.nd  some  are  organic  parts  of  the  whole,  while  others  are  con- 


ill  E1P1  IM,    I  III    8T0B1    R  in  i  hi: 

nected  only  by  the  presence  of  the  same  characters,  springing 
from  nothing  thai  precedes,  leading  to  nothing  thai  follows. 
Some  of  the  individual  stories  are,  indeed,  admirably  constructed 

and  fulfil,  in  this  respect,  short-story  requirements.  Kaa's 
Hunting,  for  example,  is  excellently  pu1  together,  is  character- 
ized by  well  elaborated,  distinct,  and  organic  scenes,  by  the 
stirring  battle,  with  admirable  details  of  action  and  effective 
suspense,  between  the  python  and  the  monkeys  at  Cold  Lairs, 
surpassing  the  besl  battle  pieces  of  the  earlier  stories.  Tigerl 
Tiger!  too.  is  an  admirable  piece  of  short-story  architecture. 
And  Hed  Dog  has  an  excellent  battle — though  somewhat  long 
drawn  out — with  telling  suspense,  and  a  well  managed  intro- 
ductory informational  incident.  But  most  of  the  Jungle  stories 
lack  this  excellence  of  structure.  Mowgli's  Brothers,  for  ex- 
ample, has  a  gap  between  jts  two  scenes  wherein  two  tales  can 
be  placed.  How  Fea/r  Ca/nn  and  The  Spring  Running  can 
scarcely  be  regarded  as  short-stories  at  all. 

Neither  better  nor  worse  in  structure  than  the  others,  and 
fairly  typical  of  the  whole  group  of  Mowgli  stories,  is  The 
King's  Ankus.  It  is  significant  also  because  it  illusl  rates  certain 
of  the  literary  relationships  of  these  tales,  and  because  it  offers 
opportunity  for  comparison  with  Chaucer's  masterly  handling 
of  the  same  motif.  It  is  peculiarly  interesting  as  carrying  on 
the  tradition  of  the  folk  tale  or  miirch<  >i,  which  crops  out  again 
and  again  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  history  of  the 
short-story.  Kipling,  by  his  own  account,  got  some  of  his  stories 
from  "women  spinning  outside  their  cottages  in  the  twilight." 
Beyond  doubt  he  got  this  one  from  such  a  source,  thus  dipping 
once  more  into  the  great  stream  of  oral  tradition  which  had  been 
flowing  steadily  on.  out  of  sight  and  for  the  most  part  forgotten. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  14.1 

since  long  before  the  Middle  Ages.  Though  it  is  in  a  manner 
new  to  Kipling,  a  manner  different  from  that  of  In  the  Rulh, 
from  that  of  all  the  Many  Inventions,  from  that  of  all  the  earlier 
volumes,  with  no  glimpse  of  Anglo-Indian  Society  or  Thomas 
Atkins  or  the  English  Administration,  yet  it  is  in  a  manner  far 
older  than  Kipling,  in  the  oldest  manner  of  prose  tale  in  the 
world,  the  manner  of  the  tale  told  to  children — modified,  it  must 
be  admitted,  but  by  no  means  transformed,  by  the  insistent 
genius  of  the  modern  author.  Of  a  technique  originally  con- 
trolled by  the  childish  audience,  it  reckons  on  unquestioning 
belief,  summoning  no  German  scientist,  like  Muller  in  In  the 
Rukh,  to  prove  its  truth.  It  makes  continual  appeal  to  its 
hearers:  Cold  Lairs,  the  deserted  city  "of  which  you  may  have 
heard";  "His  eyes  were  as  red  as  rubies,  and  altogether  he  was 
most  wonderful" ;  "The  first  thing  to  do  . .  .  is  to  cast  forward 
without  leaving  your  own  confusing  footmarks  on  the  ground." 
It  is  thus  that  by  personal  appeal  the  oral  narrator  seeks  to 
hold  the  child 's  attention.  • 

•sS^The  technique,  however,  of  the  story  for  children  has  passed 
under  the  more  vigorous  control  of  Kipling.  The  time  of  the 
action  is  brought  forward,  as  by  a  temporal  telescope,  into  the 
vivid  present ;  and  it  is  not  a  matter  of  a  generation,  but  of  two 
days.  Place,  too,  has  lost  the  vagueness  of  the  old  marchen ; 
yet  it  retains  something  of  the  old  mystery,  the  mystery  of  the 
depths  of  the  jungle,  and  of  the  ruined  city,  decay  of  ancient 
splendor,  vast  wealth  and  gorgeous  jewels  of  the  cobra's  hoard; 
suggestive  in  one  way  or  another  of  the  Old  English  poems  of 
The  Ruin  and  the  Beowulf,  as  the  gorgeous  palaces  mysteriously 
hidden  in  the  depths  of  great  forests,  are  suggestive  of  marchen 
and  lai. 


1  16  KIPLING   THE   8T0B1    WRITES, 

[ntimate  association,  on  a  footing  of  equality,  with  the  lower 
animals,  again,  is  a  habit  of  folk-tale  society.  Only  here  the 
situation  is  reversed.  For  where  in  the  folk  tale  one  or  two 
animals  are  permitted  to  enter  human  society,  here  a  human 
being,  by  special  favor,  is  permitted  to  share  the  society  of  the 
beasts.8  Bui  they  have  the  old  powers  of  teaching,  helping,  and 
guiding  the  young  hero.  It  is,  as  we  Learn  from  other  tales, 
Baloo  the  bear  who  has  general  supervision  of  Mowgli'a  educa- 
tion. Kaa.  however,  instructs  him  in  the  "manly  art  of  self- 
defense,"  in  wrestling,  and  swimming.  Jt  is  Kaa,  who  had 
saved  him  from  the  Bandar-log,  who  now  Leads  him  to  Cold 
Lairs  and  the  hidden  treasure,  and  conies  to  Ins  aid  surely  and 
swiftly  in  the  struggle  with  the  White  Cobra.  After  the  win- 
ning of  the  Ankus,  Mowgli  turns  to  his  friend  ISa^hccra  the 
panther,  a  specialist  in  the  art  of  following  a  trail,  who  knows 
more  than  he.  of  the  ways  of  men.  tells  him  what  the  ankus  was 
made  for,  and  gently  insists  upon  his  learning  the  worst  of  its 
influence  upon  wicked  man.  No  small  part,  of  the  charm,  as  in 
all  the  Jungle  stories,  depends  on  this  appeal  to  the  sentiment 
of  friendship  by  these  instances  of  swift  mutual  comprehension, 
trust,  loyalty,  and  forbearance. 

■^Kipling's  powers  of  observation  assert  themselves  as  usual 
and  give  the  settings  an  air  of  reality,  an  immediacy  of  effect, 
which  is  characteristically  lacking  in  the  folk  tale.  It  is  a  very 
real  python  with  whom  Mowgli  wrestles  and  swims  in  the  forest 
pool.  And  there  is  a  self-conscious  esthetic  sense,  foreign  of 
course  to  the  march i  n,  in  such  a  sentence  as:  "They  would  rock 
to  and  fro,  head  to  head,  each  waiting  for  his  chance,  till  the 


3  There   is  a  suggestion   of  the   old  werewolf   superstition   in   Mowgli 's 
relation  to  the  wolves. 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  147 

beautiful,  statue-like  group  melted  in  a  whirl  of  black-and-yellow 
coils  and  struggling  legs  and  arms,  to  rise  up  again  and  again." 
And  there  are  typical  bits  of  Kipling's  erudition  in  Mowgli's 
knowledge  of  the  fact  that  toes  widely  spread  signify  fast  run- 
ning, and  that  the  mark  of  a  small  foot  and  something  dragged 
beside  it  mean  a  Gond  hunter  with  his  bow.  There  are  touches 
of  artistic,  non-popular,  description  again,  in  the  trail  that  led 
"in  and  out  through  the  checkers  of  the  moonlight,"  or  in  the 
light  that  "dropped  down  into  the  darkness"  from  the  broken 
roof  of  the  treasure-vault.  Here  I  should  say,  however,  that 
Kipling 's  specific  verb  is  inferior  to  Poe  's  ' '  the  dark  high  turret- 
chamber  where  the  light  dripped  upon  the  pale  canvas  only 
from  overhead,"  or  even  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  poet's  and  Tenny- 
son's "long  light  shakes  across  the  lakes,"  for  the  effect  of 
sunlight  on  the  ruffled  surface  of  water. 

As  for  Mowgli,  he  is  a  hero  more  typical  of  the  folk  tale  than 
of  Kipling.  He  is,  indeed,  of  a  very  special  popular  type  of  the 
"innocent,"  like  the  youthful  Beowulf,  like  Parsifal  "der  reine 
Thor, "  like  Tyolet,  in  the  lai  of  Marie  de  France.  For  as 
Tyolet,  brought  up  in  ignorance  of  the  world  of  men,  does  not 
know  what  a  knight  is,  so  Mowgli  asks  the  cobra,  "What  is  a 
King?"  He  has  the  innocent's  content,  the  content  of  simple 
wishes  easily  gratified,  of  the  natural  man  closely  allied  to  the 
beasts  of  the  forests  formed  to  feed  on  the  joy  of  living,  "to  seek 
and  find  and  feast,"  untroubled  by  care  or  doubt.  For  him 
money  is  but  the  stuff  they  play  with  in  the  Man  Pack,  indiffer- 
ently brown  or  yellow.  The  jewelled  ankus  pleases  him  because 
it  offers  a  satisfactory  grip,  or  has,  when  it  glistens  in  the 
sunlight,  almost  the  beauty  of  a  bunch  of  new  flowers  to  stick 
in  his  hair.      Yet  Mowgli  is  endowed  with  positive  and  ideal 


1  in  KIPLING   l  III    >/"/.')     n  ////  /  S 

qualities.  A  tenderness  of  heart  bids  him  fling  away  the  ankus, 
when  he  learns  its  cruel  use;  he  is  Bhocked  at  its  fearful  ven- 
geance upon  m<  ii.  and  returns  it  to  the  cobra.  He  himself 
will  never  kill,  save  for  food.  He  shows  calm  courage  in  the 
encounter  with  the  cobra;  and  he  has  the  special  savage  virtue, 
of  courtesy  ami  good  temper:  for  "he  carried  his  manners  with 

his  knife,  and  thai  never  left  him":  and  in  wrestling  with  Kaa, 
he  has  learned  to  take  ;i   hard   fall   with   Laughter.       All    in   all   he 

approaches  the  Rousseau  ideal:  he  is  conceived  as  the  natural 

man.  an  animal  taught  by  brother  animals  in  their  own  virtues. 
Tie-  moral  of  the  Story  thus  lies  in  his  contrast  with  man  more 
or  h'ss  civilized,  lies  in  his  arraignment  of  "civilized"  society. 
Ik-  says  i"  Bagheera:  "We  do  nut  desire  what  men  desire"  we 
shall  imt  kill  one  another  for  wealth,  the  root  of  all  evil.  In 
Mowgli,  thai  is.  we  mee1  once  more  the  "alien  critic"  tradition. 
Like  Hiddigeigei  and  Riquet,  he  criticises  man  from  the  animal's 
point  of  view.  "They  have  no  manners,  these  men  folk.'*  he 
saw.  when  in  Ti>/<r!  Tiger!  the  villagers  stare  and  shout  and 
point  at   him.  "only  the  \ivy  ape  would  behave  as  they  do." 

In  form,  The  King's  Ankus  is  folk  tale  with  concessions  to 
Kipling,  or  vice  versa.  There  is  the  tendency  to  rhythmic  pr< 
a  regular  trail  of  the  old  oral  tale.  It  is  heard  mainly  in  the 
speeches  of  the  White  Cobra.  "I  am  the  Warden  of  the  King's 
Treasure.  Kiirrnn  Raja  builded  the  stone  above  me,  in  the  days 
when  my  skin  was  dark,  that  I  might  teach,  death  to  those  who 
came  to  steal.  Then  they  let  down  the  treasure  through  the 
stone,  and  I  heard  the  song  of  the  Brahmins  my  masters." 
Here,  indeed,  js  rhythm,  yet,  after  all,  of  a  dignity,  of  a  serious- 
ness quite  distinct  from  the  homely  and  simple  music  of  the 
opening  of  Linl*  Snow  WhiU  :  "(dice  upon  a  time  in  tin-  middle 


THE  TBANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  149 

of  winter,  when  the  flakes  of  snow  were  falling  like  feathers 
from  the  sky,  a  queen  sat  at  a  window  sewing,  and  the  frame  of 
the  window  was  made  of  black  ebony.  And  whilst  she  was  sew- 
ing and  looking  out  of  the  window  at  the  snow,  she  pricked  her 
finger  with  the  needle,  and  three  drops  of  blood  fell  upon  the 
snow.  And  the  red  looked  pretty  upon  the  white  snow,  and  she 
thought  to  herself,  '"Would  that  I  had  a  child  as  white  as  snow, 
as  red  as  blood,  and  as  black  as  the  wood  of  the  window-frame. ' 
Kipling  writes  rhythmically,  but  manifestly  he  does  not  catch 
"the  old  and  broken  voice  of  tradition,  mumbling  her  ancient 
burden  while  the  cradle  rocks,  and  the  spinning-wheel  turns  and 
hums" — as  Perrault  caught  it,  or  as  Andrew  Lang  caught  it  in 
this  admirable  echo  of  its  manner. 

From  another  point  of  view  the  structure  of  The  King's 
Aniens  is  an  improvement  upon  that  of  the  mdrchen :  it  is  more 
organic;  there  is  a  distinct  beginning  and  a  distinct  end,  and 
each  part  of  the  narrative  has  it  special  function.  The  intro- 
ductory incidents  reveal  the  settings  and  Mowgli's  relations  to 
these,  and  set  the  story  in  motion  by  the  news  of  the  mysterious 
something,  desired  by  men,  in  the  vault  at  Cold  Lairs.  The 
scene  in  the  vault  follows;  then,  after  the  transitional  meeting 
with  Bagheera,  the  scene  of  the  tracking.  This  is  quite  different 
from  the  marchen  habit  of  stringing  together  independent 
events.  And  yet,  if  we  regard  the  kernel  of  the  story  as  the 
killing  of  one  man  and  the  poisoning  of  his  companions  for  the 
possession  of  a  treasure — and  this  was  the  kernel  of  the  story — 
we  can  see  how  it  has  been  subjected  to  an  overlaying  of  ex- 
traneous matter.  To  place  it  in  the  Jungle  Books,  to  make  of 
it  Mowgli's  story,  the  whole  early  part  is  added,  that  is,  every- 
thing up  to  the  moment  of  Mowgli's  throwing  away  the  ankus. 


L50  KIPLING    l  III    8T0B1    H  Ell  I  l: 

From  thai  poinl  the  old  story  is  nut  directly  told,  but  suggested, 
reconstructed,  and  by  a  mosl  interesting  method,  the  method 
of  Voltaire's  Z<i<li<j.  For  Bagheera  and  Mowgli  follow  thai 
oriental  philosopher  far  more  closely  than  Poe's  Dupin,  or 
Conan  Doyle's  Sherlock  Holmes  follows  him.  We  know  thai 
Kipling  read  Voltaire ;  possibly  this  is  unconscious  reminiscence. 
I'.ut  we  know  that  Voltaire's  source  was  oriental;  and  it  is  not 
inconceivable  thai  this  early  detective  story  lingered  in  India 
and  united  there  with  the  treasure  and  poison  story  before  Kip- 
ling's day.  Or,  what  is  after  all  most  probable,  it  may  he  that 
Kipling  knew  first-hand  something  of  the  methods  of  following 
a  trail  and  placed  his  knowledge  at  the  disposal  of  Mowgli  and 
Bagheera  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  old  tale. 

It  is  not  only,  however,  that  the  old  tale  is  approached  in 
this  new  way.  The  tale  itself  is  modified  by  the  addition  of 
new  material.  In  all  the  old  versions  three  robbers,  or  ruffians, 
gel  the  treasure  directly  from  an  old  man.  who  in  Kipling's 
version  becomes  the  cobra.  In  Kipling's  version  there  intervene 
Mowgli.  the  villager,  and  the  Gond  hunter,  all  unnecessary  for 
the  working  out  of  the  original  motif.  Thus  Kipling,  dealing 
with  this  ancient  material,  adds  to  it  oufsidi .  so  to  speak,  all 
the  Mowgli  matter,  and  inside,  three  new  and  unnecessary  char- 
acters, with,  of  course,  that  part  of  the  action  in  which  they 
are  concerned. 

Chaucer,  in  Th<  Pardoner's  Tale,  tells  the  same  story.  But 
he  (hals  with  it  in  exactly  the  opposite  way:  instead  of  adding 
new  characters  and  action,  he  elaborates  those  already  present. 
He  differentiates  subtly  and  by  purely  objective  and  dramatic 
methods  the  characters  of  the  three  revellers;  he  tells  the  story 
from  their  point  of  view,  studying  their  motives.      In  Kipling 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  151 

they  have  no  characters  and  no  psychology;  Mowgli's  point  of 
view  does  not  permit  that.  And  Kipling's  cobra,  though  not  a 
bad  study  in  senile  decay,  is  in  no  way  comparable  to  Chaucer's 
marvelous  figure  of  the  mysterious  old  man;  and  for  Kipling's 
Mowgli,  the  reconstructor  of  the  story,  we  have  Chaucer's  far 
more  complex  and  subtle  narrator,  the  Pardoner.  And  if,  fur- 
thermore, Kipling  is  the  more  vivid,  so  far  as  he  deals  with  what 
Mowgli  saw,  Chaucer  is  the  more  realistic.  We  may  not  vis- 
ualize so  distinctly,  but  we  grasp  more  vigorously  and  remember 
more  tenaciously  Chaucer's  three  revelers  in  the  tavern  or 
as  they  stand  face  to  face  with  the  old  man  at  the  stile ;  or  the 
poisoner  running  from  the  apothecary's  to  the  vintner's,  even 
though  Chaucer  was  grossly  ignorant  of  the  spread  of  his  toes. 
If,  then,  it  be  the  distinguishing  function  of  the  short-story  to 
make  the  most  of  a  small  but  significant  section  of  narrative, 
rather  than  to  increase  its  length,  it  is  Chaucer  who  fulfils  that 
function,  not  Kipling.  Moreover,  in  weight,  in  intensity,  in 
unity  of  tone,  in  soundness  of  moral  implication — the  implication 
of  a  criticism  not  of  all  civilized  men  but  of  three  drunken 
rogues — Chaucer's  tale  is  superior  to  Kipling's.  It  may  be 
urged  that  Kipling's  story  was  conditioned  by  the  general  con- 
ception of  the  Jungle  Books,  or  that  he  aimed  lower  than  [/ 
Chaucer.  "Well,  Chaucer's  story  was  conditioned  by  the  de- 
mands of  the  conception  of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  and  admirably 
does  it  fulfil  those  demands.  And  if  Chaucer  aims  higher,  and 
is  loyal  to  that  higher  aim,  so  much  the  greater  is  Chaucer. 
Moreover,  in  a  sense,  Chaucer  aims  lower,  as  well.  That  is,  his 
story  has  to  be  comic  as  well  as  tragic :  he  achieves  his  grim 
jest  by  the  emphasis  on  the  psychological  element,  contrasting 
expectation  with  fulfilment ;  just  as  he  achieves  tragedy,  in  part, 


L52  KIPLING   I  HE  ST0B1    WBI1  EE 

by  his  emphasis  on  those  elements  of  character  which  lr;i<l  in- 
evitably to  ruin.  It  is  thus  Chaucer's  tale  again  thai  has  the 
greater  human  interest. 

I  have  Lingered  too  long  over  this  comparison.  Y<-i  il  is 
well  to  apply,  as  Matthew  Arnold  did,  the  touchstone  of  the 
best.  '//'•  King's  Ankus  has  real  and  manifest  excellences:  it 
delights  and  charms  us,  justly,  in  part;  in  pari  because  il  is 
written  after  the  fashion  of  our  own  day.  It  is  righl  that  we 
should  examine  it  closely,  and  comparing  it  with  the  L'ardoner's 
Tah  discover  thai  it  does  not  deserve  to  take  rank  as  one  of  the 
greal   masterpieces  of  the  art  of  brief  narrative.* 

Only  eight  of  the  stories  in  the  -Jungle  Book  deal  with  Mowgli 
and  his  friends.  It  is  merely  of  these,  of  course,  that  The  King's 
.1  nkus  ean  stand  as  a  type.  Some  of  the  departures  of  the  other 
seven  from  tins  type  are  worth  noting. 

In  two  of  them  Kipling's  sense  of  fact  still  further  relents 
and  permits  him  to  deal  with  lands  of  which  he  knew  only  by 
hearsay.  Thus  Th<  Whitt  Seal  begins:  "All  these  things  hap- 
pened ...  at  a  place  called  Novastoshnah,  or  North  East  Point. 
on  the  Island  of  St.  Paul,  away  and  away  in  the  Bering  Sea." 
The  ordinary  migrations  of  the  seals  take  them  across  the  Pacific, 
or  southward,  seven  thousand  miles,  to  the  Island  of  Juan 
Fernandez;  and  the  hero's  wanderings  in  search  of  an  island 
where  no  men  ever  came,  extend  to  Walrus  Islet,  northeast  of 
Novastoshnah,  and  all  through  the  North  and  South  Pacific. 
"He  went  to  the  Gallapagos,  a  horrid  dry  place  on  the  Equator, 
where  he  was  nearly  baked  to  death  ;  he  went  to  the  Georgia 
Islands,  the  Orkneys,  Emerald  Island,  Little  Nightingale  Island, 
Gough?s   Island,   Bouvet  "s    Island,   the   ("russets,   and  even   to  a 


4  See  for  further  comparison  of  The  King's  Ankus  and  The  Pardoner'* 
Tale,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  84,  p.  714. 


TEE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  153 

little  speck  of  an  island  south  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ...  to 
Cape  Corientes,  [and]  headed  round  the  Horn  back  to  his  own 
beaches.'"  Lacking  these  Ulysses  wanderings,  but  full  of  the 
technical  local  color  of  Navy  Board  Islet  on  the  north  shore  of 
Baffin  Land,  is  the  Esquimaux  story  of  Quiquern.  Thus : 
Kotuko  "crawled  back  over  the  huddled  dogs,  dusted  the  dry 
snow  from  his  furs  with  the  whalebone  beater  that  Amoraq 
kept  by  the  door,  tapped  the  skin-lined  roof  of  the  house  to  shake 
off  any  icicles  that  might  have  fallen  from  the  dome  of  snow 
above,  and  curled  up  on  the  bench.  The  dogs  in  the  passage 
snored  and  whined  in  their  sleep,  the  boy-baby  in  Amoraq 's  deep 
fur  hood  kicked  and  choked  and  gurgled,  and  the  mother  of  the 
newly  named  puppy  lay  at  Kotuko 's  side,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
bundle  of  sealskin,  warm  and  safe  above  the  broad  yellow  flame 
of  the  lamp."  All  this  is  no  less  photographic — or  cinemato- 
graphic— than  the  paragraphs,  like  the  opening  of  At  the  End 
of  the  Passeige,  wThich  in  the  earlier  tales  convey  the  impres- 
sion of  India.  Clearly  imagination,  power  of  selecting  and 
assimilating  facts,  can  be  made  to  do  for  Kipling  the  work  of 
observation. 

This  enlargement  of  the  place-setting  is  accompanied  by  an 
extension  of  the  social  setting.  In  Quiquern,  Esquimaux  types 
are  set  forth  with  verisimilitude ;  in  The  White  Seal,  the  customs 
of  seals,  sea-lions,  sea-cows,  and  so  on,  are  studied  in  great 
detail  and  with  apparent  accuracy;  and  other  stories  add  to  the 
East  Indian  menagerie  mongoose,  horse,  mules,  camel,  bullock, 
jackal,  adjutant,  and  crocodile,  each  with  his  special  point 
of  view. 

In  some  of  the  stories  there  is  a  tendency  to  deal  with  the 
animals  in  the  Chaucerian  way,  that  is,  not  as  offering  a  contrast 


l.vi  hll'l  TNG  1  III    8T0B1    R  Ell  /  S 

to  man,  bul  as  repeating,  like  Chantecler  and  Pertelote,  amusing 
human  imperfections.  The  walruses  Looked  at  the  white  seal 
as  you  can  imagine  "a  club  full  of  drowsy  old  gentlemen  would 

look  at  a  little  boy."  "Run  away."  says  one  of  them,  "We're 
lnis\  lure."  Kotick,  the  White  Seal,  met  in  his  wanderings 
"all  the  untrustworthy  ruffians  that  loaf  up  and  down  the  high 
S<  as,  and  the  heavy  polite  lish.  and  the  scallops  that  are  moored 
in  one  place  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  grow  very  proud  of  it." 
And  the  talk  of  Kotick's  parents  is  an  admirable  bit  of  good- 
humored  satire  of  marital  relations.  Compared  with  the  con- 
versation of  Chantecler  and  lYrlelote.  however,  it  looks  a  little 
obvious  and  seems  lacking  in  subtlety.  The  significant  thing  is 
rather  the  good  humor  of  it;  the  bitterness  of  Kipling's  earlier 
satire  has  vanished. 

— S,Vct  there  is  scarcely  a  growth  in  interest  in  commonplace 
people;  the  hero  is  still  of  the  superlative  type,  distinguished 
member  of  his  race  or  elan,  doer  of  great  deeds\  Kotick  is  a  whit( 
seal,  the  only  one  to  ask  questions  when  his  friends  are  slain,  the 
only  one  not  to  accept  the  slaughter  as  "part  of  the  day's  work," 
but  to  set  out  in  search  of  an  island  inaccessible  to  men.  to  find 
it,  and  then  to  fight  a  thousand  of  his  companions,  one  by  one, 
in  order  to  persuade  them  to  benefit  by  his  discovery.  Rikki- 
Tikki-Tavi  is  no  ordinary  mongoose,  but  one  that  slew  three 
snakes  and  saved  the  lives  of  a  whole  family  that  befriended 
him.  Toomai  of  tin  Elephants  was  the  only  human  being  who 
had  seen  the  elephants  dance.  And  Purun  Bhagat  was  a  great 
statesman  who  became  a  beggar  and  hermit,  so  holy  that  the 
animals  became  his  friends  and  warned  him  in  time  to  save  a 
Himalayan  village  from  an   impending  landslip. 

In  general,  the  tales  of  the  Jungle  Books  reveal  a  better  grasp 


THE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  155 

of  structure  and  a  more  perfect  unity  of  tone  than  the  stories  of 
the  first  period.  A  few  of  them,  perhaps,  over-run  the  natural 
limits  of  the  short-story.  The  fact  that  Mowgli's  Brothers  per- 
mits the  insertion,  between  its  two  scenes,  of  two  independent 
stories,  implies  relatively  inorganic  structure.  Letting  in  the 
Jungle  has,  perhaps,  too  many  events,  is  essentially  too  long. 
The  Miracle  of  Purun  Bhagat  partakes,  perhaps,  too  much  of 
the  nature  of  biography,  as  The  White  Seal,  the  story  of  a 
search  through  years  for  an  island  inaccessible  to  men,  partakes 
of  the  nature  of  an  epic  of  the  Odyssey  type.  Other  tales 
achieve  unity  by  emphasis  of  the  situation  in  which  the  story 
is  told.  This  is  true  of  How  Fear  Came,  and  of  The  Under- 
takers.  In  the  latter  story  the  crocodile  tells  how  near  he  came 
to  snatching  a  baby  from  a  boat  floating  down  the  river  in  the 
days  of  the  Mutiny.  As  he  finishes  his  tale,  that  same  baby, 
now  a  grown  man,  shoots  him.  This  story  has  the  air  of  being 
a  piece  of  conscious  compression,  like  Nodier's  Combe  a  I'Homnu 
Mort;  and  The  King's  Ankus,  may,  as  we  have  just  seen,  be 
regarded  as  the  story  of  the  reconstruction  of  a  story.  Only 
two  of  the  tales  must  be  rejected  as  short-stories — the  Spring 
Running  and  Her  Majesty's  Servants;  the  former  a  study  in 
psychology,  the  latter,  a  study  in  the  organization  of  the  Indian 
Empire.  Six  of  the  tales,  finally,  are  typical  short-stories  of 
the  thoroughly  orthodox  type  of  structure:  Kaa's  Hunting, 
Tiger!  Tiger!,  Bed  Dog,  Toomai  of  the  Elephants,  Quiquern, 
and  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. 

All  fifteen  show  the  results  of  more  imaginative,  less  matter-' 
of -fact  methods,  than  the  tales  of  the  early  period.  There  is  less 
crowding  in  of  concrete  incident ;  there  is  more  organization  into 
distinct  scenes.      The  stories  are  longer,  and  being  at  the  same 


156  KIPLING    I  111-    8T0B1     WB11  EB 

time  less  packed  with  detail,  the  movement  is  much  less  rapid. 
Ii  is  as  it'  Kipling  had  here  modified  his  old  headlong  pace  to 
suil  the  shorl  steps  of  a  child.  And  though  his  tone  is  ool 
absolutely  uniform,  the  breaks  in  manner  arc  not  such  marked 
descents  i<>  prose  levels;  there  is  no  change  in  lone  so  greal 
a->  the  shifts  t'l-oin  pathos  to  hitter  satire  in  the  earlier  stories. 
Ii  is  rather  thai  Kipling  pauses  aow  and  then  to  insert  a  bit 
of  explanation  or  instruction,  betraying  an  anxiety  to  improve 
as  well  as  to  entertain  an  audience  of  children.  Yet,  as  we 
have  seen,  this  is  a  fixed  habit  of  Kipling's.  Although  he  is  will- 
ing at  times  in  be  so  technical  as  to  be  unintelligible,  he  insists. 
at  others,  in  explaining  where  no  explanation  is  necessary;  in 
the  Jungli  Hooks,  the  personal  note  is  less  insistent  in  these 
explanations.  In  general,  in  evident  carefulness  of  workman- 
ship, in  restraint,  in  unity  of  tone  and  style,  in  delicacy,  in 
freedom  from  mannerism,  the  Jungle  stories  show  a  distinct 
advance  over  all  the  work  that  preceded  them. 

Although,  so  far  as  Moral  Interpretation  is  concerned,  there 
is  something  of  the  old  cynical  realism  in  the  unflattering  com- 
parison of  man  with  the  beasts,  yet  it  is  always  mainly  on  the 
more  agreeable  side  that  the  emphasis  falls,  on  the  ideal  quali- 
ties, that  is,  with  which  the  beasts  are  endowed.  If,  in  the 
earlier  stories,  he  emphasizes  to  a  certain  extent  those  qualities 
which  men  share  with  the  lower  animals,  in  these  stories  he 
emphasizes  in  the  lower  animals  the  presence  of  qualities  which 
are  ordinarily  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar  possession  of  men. 
In  a  word,  in  his  treatment  of  animal  heroes,  he  is  not  animal- 
istic. The  stories  reveal  not  so  much  "hunger,  thirst,  lust, 
cruelty,  vanity,  sloth,  predacity,  greed,"  as  wisdom,  loyalty. 
courage,  courtesy,  good  temper,  fixity  of  purpose  (as  contrasP  ,1 


IRE  TRANSITIONAL  TECHNIQUE  157 

with  the  Bandar-log),  obedience  to  law.  To  the  law  of  the 
jungle,  that  is;  in  only  one  story  is  the  law  of  man  involved, 
in  Her  Majesty's  Servants;  who,  it  is  said,  "obey  as  men  do. 
Mule,  horse,  elephant,  or  bullock,  he  obeys  his  driver,  and  the 
driver  his  sergeant,  and  the  sergeant  his  lieutenant,"  and  so 
on,  up  to  the  brigadier,  "who  obeys  his  general,  who  obeys  the 
Viceroy,  who  is  the  servant  of  the  Empress,"  as  in  the  creed 
outlined  in  The  Conversion  of  Aurelian  McGoggin.  The  rhyme 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Second  Jungle  Book  seems  to  be  Kip- 
ling's summary  of  the  principal  moral  to  be  drawn  from  the 
work  as  a  whole  : 

Now  these  are  the   Laws  of   the   Jungle, 

and  many  and  mighty  are  they; 
But  the  head  and  the  hoof  of  the  Law 

and  the  haunch  and  the  hump  is — Obey! 

c^>The  general  tendencies  of  the  second  or  transition  period  may 
be  summed  up  as  a  general  drift  away  from  realism  and  from 
adherence  to  fact,  in  the  direction  of  romance  and  of  the  freer 
play  of  the  imagination!  It  is  significant,  for  example,  that  In 
the  Rukh,  the  first  Jungle  story,  reveals  Mowgli  in  his  relations 
with  the  Anglo-Indian  world;  whereas  the  stories  of  the  Jungle 
Books  detach  him  complete!}'  from  that  world  and  reveal  him 
in  his  relations  with  his  friends  the  animals,  under  conditions 
which  are,  of  necessity,  wholly  imaginary.  Thus  in  place  of  the 
real  and  prosaic  India,  we  have  the  mysterious  and  romantic 
heart  of  the  Jungle,  in  place  of  the  Anglo-Indians,  Baloo  and 
Bagheera  and  Kaa  and  the  wolf-pack.  The  world  of  the  White 
Seal  and  the  world  of  Quiquern,  the  Esquimau,  are  further 
imaginative  creations  of  places  and  dramatis  personac.  Kipling 
is  disposed,  moreover,  to  insist  less  and  less  on  the  real  or  natural 


158  EIPL1  VG   I  III    8T0BI   W BITER 

qualities  of  his  characters,  to  idealize  them  more  and  more,  so 
thai  here  also  imagination  has  free  play.  He  descends,  so  to 
speak,  still  lower  than  the  beasts,  finds  romance  in  machinery, 
and  begins  the  personification  of  ships.  A«rain,  he  now  departs 
from  his  own  time,  and  ventures  upon  an  imaginative  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  past,  in  the  extremely  significant  Finest  Story  in 
tin   World. 

There  is  evidence,  too,  in  addition  to  this  freer  play  of  the 
imagination  of  a  new  interest  in  matters  of  form.  There  arc 
twO  novelties  in  this  way:  allegory,  in  Tin  Children  of  ih< 
Zodiac,  and  m'drcln  »,  the  tale  of  the  marvelous  told  for  children, 
marked  by  a  new  effort  to  hit  and  to  hold  a  certain  level  of  style 
or  manner.  And  in  general,  with  the  slower  movement  of  the 
Jungle  tales,  goes  greater  artistry,  a  greater  restraint,  a  far  less 
obvious  persona]  note,  a  greater  refinement  and  delicacy  of 
treatment. 

Realism,  then,  the  insistence  on  the  observed  fact,  and  Inten- 
sity, the  intervention  of  the  author  in  Ins  own  person,  diminish, 
and  permit  a  corresponding  growth  in  Imagination  and  Sense 
of  Form. 


•  1 


PART  THREE 

THE  ENGLISH  PERIOD 

Kipling  with  his  family  spent  the  winter  of  1897-1898  in 
South  Africa.  Returning  to  England  in  the  spring  of  1898, 
he  took  a  house  at  Rottingdean,  near  Brighton,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  making  it  his  permanent  home.  In  January,  1899,  he 
sailed  with  his  family  to  America.  In  New  York  he  was 
attacked  by  a  cold  which  developed  into  pneumonia.  It  was 
feared  that  he  might  not  recover.  Meantime  his  two  daughters 
had  fallen  ill  with  the  same  disease,  which  for  the  elder,  aged 
six,  terminated  fatally.  The  family  returned  to  England  in 
June.  In  1907  Kipling  was  awarded  the  Nobel  Prize  "for  the 
most  distinguished  work  in  the  field  of  idealistic  tendency." 
He  continues  to  live  at  Rottingdean.  During  this  period  he 
has  published  The  Day's  Work  (1891-1898),  Stalky  and  Com- 
pany (1897-1900),  Just  So  Stories  (1897-1903),  Traffics  and 
Discoveries  (1901-1904),  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill  (1905-1906), 
Actions  and  Reactions  (1909),  and  Rewards  and  Fairies  (1910). 


CIIAI'TKK   VI 

THE  SETTINGS 

•^•Jii  tin-  third  period,  which  for  the  present  closes  naturally 
with  1910  Kipling's  forty-fifth  year  developmenl  still  con- 
tinues.     Yi  t   it   is  to  be  regarded  primarily  as  a  time  of  final 

achievement,  when  the  tendencies  and  characteristics  which  we 
have  been  studying  reach  a  kind  of  culmination. 

Only  half  a  dozen  of  the  seventy-four  stories  of  this  period 
hark  hack  to  India.      In  another  half  dozen  Kipling  extends  his 

empire  td  the  sea;  in  a  third  six.  to  South  Africa.  Only  three, 
I  think,  have  America  as  background,  ^fhe  scene  of  all.  or 
nearly  all,  of  the  others,  is  laid  in  England.  So  far.  thru,  as 
geography  is  concerned,  the  discover}-  of  England  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing mark  of  Kipling's  latest  work.] 

-  It  is  all  based  on  observation.!  His  imagination  does  not 
again  carry  him  outside  his  own  field  of  vision,  as  it  did  in 
Quiquem  and  Thi  Whitt  Seal  of  the  .Jmu/h  Hooks.  [lis  descrip- 
tions have  all  the  old  vividness.  An  American  may  test  their 
accuracy  by  examining  those  which  deal  with  landscape  familiar 
to  him:  "Yon  must  go  down  by  the  brook  that  feeds  the  clicking, 
bubbling  water-ram;  up  through  the  sugar  bush,  where  the 
young  maple  undergrowth  closes  round  yon  like  a  shallow  sea; 
next  follow  the  faint  line  of  an  old  county-road  running  pasl 
two  green  hollows  fringed  with  wild  rose  that  mark  the  cellars 
of  two  ruined  houses;  then  by  Lost  Orchard,  where  nobody  ever 


THE  SETT  IS  GS  161 

comes  except  in  cider-time ;  then  across  another  brook,  and  so 
into  the  Back  Pasture.  Half  of  it  is  pine  and  hemlock  and 
spruce,  with  sumach  and  little  juniper  bushes,  and  the  other  half 
is  grey  rock  and  boulder  and  moss,  with  green  streaks  of  brake 
and  swamp."  And  you  know  where  that  Back  Pasture  is;  for 
with  absolute  sureness  of  imaginative  selection,  Kipling  has 
seized  upon  the  characteristic  details  of  the  New  England 
landscape.  Again  :  "  It 's  a  kindly,  softly  country  there,  back 
of  Philadelphia  among  the  German  towns,  Lancaster  way. 
Little  houses  and  bursting  big  barns, .  .  .  and  all  as  peaceful  as 
Heaven."  There,  of  an  autumn  morning,  "you  roll  out  o' 
your  blanket  and  find  every  leaf  left  green  overnight  turned  red 
and  yellow,  not  by  trees  at  a  time,  but  hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  miles  of  'em,  like  sunsets  splattered  upside  down,  .  .  .  the 
maples  .  .  .  flaming  scarlet  and  gold, .  .  .  the  sumach  bushes  .  .  . 
redder."  What  strikes  one  at  once  as  new  in  these  descriptive 
passages  is  the  insistence  upon  beauty ;  and,  in  the  second  one, 
at  least,  where  Brother  Square  Toes  speaks,  sense  of  beauty 
mingled  with  passionate  regret  for  a  happy  and  care-free  youth 
spent  in  those  scenes.  It  is  not,  of  course,  wholly  new.  You 
may  find  the  same  note,  or  something  like  it,  in  some  of  the 
earlier  Indian  stories,  but  with  a  vast  difference  in  tone  that 
admirably  illustrates  the  contrast  between  Kipling  at  twenty- 
five  and  at  forty-five : 

"Summer  evenings  in  the  country, — stained-glass  window, — light  going 
out,  and  you  and  she  jamming  your  heads  together  over  one  hymn-book," 
said  Mottram. 

"Yes,  and  a  fat  old  cockchafer  hitting  you  in  the  eye  when  you  walked 
home.  Smell  of  hay,  and  a  moon  as  big  as  a  bandbox  sitting  on  the  top 
of  a  haycock;   bats, — roses, — milk  and  midges,"  said  Lowndes.i 


i  At  the  End  of  the  Passage. 


L62  KIPL1  \  G    I  HE  STOBI   117.7/  /•  /,' 

It  is  in  description  of  just  this  English  Landscape  thai  sense 
of  beauty,  that  sentiment,  have  Ereesl  play  in  the  final  period. 
The  young  subaltern,  hack  from  India,  finds  thai  "there's  n<> 
place  like  England     when  you've  dune  yum-  work.'' 

"Not  a  thing  changed,"  tie  sighed  contentedly,  when  the  three  of  them 

sat  down  to  dinner  in  the  late  sunlight,  while  the  rabbits  crept  out   u] 

the  lawn  below  the  cedars,  and  the  big  trout  in  the  ponds  by  the  borne 
paddock  rose  for  their  evening  meal. "..  .Beyond  were  "the  round-bosomed 
woods ...  where  the  white  pheasant  boxes  were  ranged;  and  the  golden  air 
was  full  of  a  hundred  sacred  scents  and  Bounds. 

Again,  in  My  Sunday  at  Home,  Kipling  gives  direct  expression 
to  his  own  persona]  feeling; 

It  was  the  very  point  of  perfection  in  the  heart  of  an  English  May-day. 
The  unseen  tides  of  the  air  had  turned,  and  all  nature  was  setting  its  face 
with  the  shadows  of  the  horse  chestnuts  towards  the  peace  of  the  coming 
night.  But  there  were  hours  yet  I  knew — long,  long  hours  of  the  eternal 
English  twilight — to  the  ending  of  the  day.  I  was  well  content  to  be 
alive — to  abandon  myself  to  the  drift  of  Time  and  Fate, ...  and  to  love 
my  country  with  the  devotion  that  three  thousand  miles  of  intervening  sea 
In  inn  to  fullest  flower.  Ami  what  a  garden  of  Eden  it  was,  this  fatted, 
clipped,  ami  washes  land!  A  man  could  camp  in  any  open  field  with  more 
sense  of  home  and  security  than  the  stateliest  buildings  of  foreign  cities 
could  afford.  Ami  the  joy  was  that  it  was  all  mine  [  in  |alienaldy — groomd 
hedgrow,  spotless  road,  decent  greystone  cottage,  serried  spinney,  tasselled 
copse,  apple-bellied  hawthorn,  and  well-grown  tree.  A  light  puff  of  wind — 
it  scattered  flakes  of  may  over  the  gleaming  rails — gave  me  a  faint  whiff 
as  it  might  have  been  of  fresh  cocoanut,  and  I  knew  that  the  golden  gorse 
was  in   bloom  somewhere  out  of  sight. 

Here,  as  in  the  earlier  descriptions  of  India,  power  of  observa- 
tion, of  seizing  upon  what  is  characteristic,  is  largely  the  result 
of  sense  of  differences.  It  is  the  three  thousand  miles  of  inter- 
vening sea  that  hrin<r  devotion  io  ('idlest  flower.  Thus  Kipling 
approaches  England  as  an  outsider;  his  very  insistence  on  his 
own   inalienable  righl    in  the  landscape  is  evidence  of  that  atti- 


THE  SETTINGS  163 

tude.  His  point  of  view,  indeed,  is  pretty  nearly  that  of  the 
Americans  whom  he  so  cordially  hates ;  it  is  the  colonial  point 
of  view. 

It  is  just  this  point  of  view,  or  rather,  this  sentiment,  that 
furnishes  the  motif  for  An  Habitation  Enforced,  one  of  the  most 
utterly  satisfactory  stories  that  Kipling  has  written.  It  is  the 
tale  of  a  yonng  American  millionaire  who,  with  his  wife,  seeks 
rest  and  quiet,  after  nervous  prostration,  in  an  English  farm- 
house. They  are  charmed  by  the  empty  manor  house  nearby, 
and  Chapin,  desiring,  as  he  grows  stronger,  something  to  play 
with,  buys  the  estate.  It  transpires  that  Sophie,  his  wife,  is 
descended  from  the  Lashmar  family  who  once  owned  it;  and  the 
place  takes  possession  of  them.  But  it  is  not  their  land ;  as 
Chapin  says,  "We've  only  paid  for  it.  We  belong  to  it,  and  it 
belongs  to  the  people — our  people,  they  call  'em."  Kipling 
compresses  the  spirit  of  it  all  in  the  poem  at  the  close : 

I  am  the  land  of  their  fathers, 

In  me  the  virtue  stays; 
I  will  bring  back  my  children, 

After  certain  days. 

Under  their  feet  in  the  grasses    . 

My  clinging  magic  runs. 
They  shall  return  as  strangers, 

They  shall  remain  as  sons. 


Scent  of  smoke  in  the  evening, 
Smell  of  rain   in  the  night, 

The  hours,  the  days  and  the  seasons 
Order  their  souls  aright; 

Till  I  make  plain  the  meaning 
Of  all  my  thousand  years — 

Till  I  fill  their  hearts  with  knowledge, 
While  I  fill  their  eves  with  tears. 


164  KIPUSli   Till:   STOBI    WE1TEE 

It  is  extremely  instructive  to  contrasl  Kipling's  whole  atti- 
tude toward  England  in  this  later  period  with  that  in  the  earlier 
time,  the  time  of  his  first  return.  Like  other  "native  born" 
he  had  been  taught  in  India  to  call  England  home;  but  he  felt 
anything  but  ;it  home  there;  he  was  conscious  only  of  gloom,  fog. 
and  narrow-minded  people.  The  Albert  Docks,  in  London,  were 
the  point  whence  the  British-India  steamers  go  to  the  sunshine. 
He  had  no  desire  to  republish  the  articles  and  sketches  which 
reflect  this  gloomy  view  of  England;  we  owe  our  knowledge  of 
them  primarily  to  the  pirated  edition  of  an  American  publisher. 
The  fact  that  Kipling  disowned  them  is  significant  of  his  change 
of  attitude  in  the  later  period. 

Still  more  American,  or  colonial,  is  a  later  phase  of  Kipling's 
appreciation  of  England,  in  which,  to  this  sense  of  its  ordered 
beauty,  this  sense  of  home  and  security,  he  adds  the  magic  of 
association  with  the  past.  It  is  this  magic  that  constitutes,  for 
the  American  traveller,  the  charm  of  the  English  atmosphere, 
of  a  country  which,  though  in  many  ways  the  most  progressive 
in  Europe,  has  yet  clung  more  tenaciously  than  any  other'to  its 
past.  The  American,  who  has  no  past  of  his  own,  must  look  for 
it  in  what  Hawthorne  calls  Our  Old  Home.  The  American's 
'natural  conservatism  asserts  itself,"  as  Mr.  Crothers  says,  "in 
his  insistence  that  the  places  which  he  visits  shall  he  true  to 
their  own  reputations." 

.  .  .  After  a  time  [however]  one  comes  to  have  a  certain  modesty  of 
expectation.  Time  and  Space  are  different  elements,  and  each  has  its  own 
laws.  At  the  price  of  a  steamship  ticket  one  may  he  transported  to 
another  country,  but  safe  passage  to  another  age  is  not  guaranteed.  ...  A 
walk  through  a  pleasant  neighborhood  is  all  the  pleasanter  if  one  knows 
that  something  memorable  lias  happened  there.  If  one  is  wise  he  will 
not  attempt  to  realize  it  to  the  exclusion  of  the  present  scene.  It  is 
enough  to  have  a  slight  flavor  of  historicity. 


THE  SETTINGS  165 

It  is  just  this  combination  of  the  charm  of  the  present  scene  with 
the  flavor  of  historicity,  this  safe  passage  to  another  age,  that 
Kipling  accomplishes  for  Dan  and  Una  in  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill 
and  Rewards  and  Fairies,  thus  satisfying  a  craving  of  his  own 
soul  which,  had  he  been  a  mere  stay-at-home  Englishman,  he 
would  not  have  felt  with  anything  like  the  same  keenness : 

"What   do   they   know   of   England   who   only   England 
know  ? ' ' 

And  so  it  is  that  Puck  explains  to  the  children  that  his  friends 
used  to  set  his  dish  of  cream  for  him  o'  nights  when  Stonehenge 
was  new.  Yes,  before  the  Flint  Men  made  the  Dewpond  under 
Chanctonbury  Ring.  He  knew  Weland  Smith,  of  Germanic 
Mythology  fame,  who  forged  the  ancient  burnie  of  Beowulf. 

"I  met  [him]  first,"  he  tells  the  children,  "on  a  November  afternoon 
in  a  sleet  storm,  on  Pevensey  Level — ' ' 

"Pevensey?      Over  the  hill,  you  mean?"      Dan  pointed  south. 

' '  Yes ;  but  it  was  all  marsh  in  those  days,  right  up  to  Horsebridge  and 
Hydeneye.  I  was  on  Beacon  Hill — they  called  it  Brunanburgh  then — when 
I  saw  the  pale  flame  that  burning  thatch  makes. "... 

' '  A  year  or  two  before  the  Conquest ...  I  came  back  to  Pook  's  Hill  here, 
.  .  .  and  heard  old  Hobden  talking  about  Weland 's  Ford  .  .  .  just  beyond  Bog 
Wood  yonder. ' ' 

"Why,  that's  Willingford  Bridge,"  said  Una.  "We  go  there  for  walks 
often.      There  's  a  kingfisher  there. ' ' 

All  this  is  in  the  first  story.  In  each  one  of  those  that  follow 
Dan  and  Una  learn  to  taste  the  "flavor  of  historicity"  in  the 
familiar  country  about  them.  The  smallest,  least  significant 
objects  have  their  associations;  the  very  chickens'  drinking- 
trough  is  the  plague-stone  which  had  been  placed  at  the  boundary 
of  their  own  village,  for  exchange   of  food  and  money,   when 


166 


KIPLING  TEE  STORY   WRITER 


people  dared  come  no  nearer  for  the  plague,  two  hundred  years 
before. 

See  you  the  dimpled  track  that  runs, 

All   hollow  through   the  wheat  .' 
i)    that    was    where    they    hauled    the    guns 

That  smote  King  Philip's  fleet. 

Sec   you   our    little    mill    that   clacks, 

So    busily    by    the    brook  : 
She   has   ground    her   corn   and    paid   her   tax 

Ever   since    Domesday   Book. 

See  you  our  stilly  woods  of  oak, 

And    the    dread    ditch    beside? 
()  that  was  where  the  Saxons  broke, 

On    the   day   that    Harold    died. 

See  you    the   windy   levels   spread 

About  the  gates  of  Eye.' 
O  that  was  where  the  Northmen  fled, 

When  Alfred's  ships  came  by. 


And    see  you   marks   that    show   and   fade, 

bike   shadows  on  the  Downs.' 
O  they  are  the  lines  the  Flint  Men  made, 

To   guard   their   wondrous   towns. 

Trackway   and   Camp   and   City   lost, 
Salt  Marsh  where  now  is  corn  ; 

Old   "Wars,   old   Peace,   old   Arts   that   cease, 
And  so  was  England  born! 


She   is  not  any  common  Earth, 
Water  or  wood  or  air, 

But  Merlin 's  Isle  of  Gramarye, 
Where  you  and  I  will  fare. 


THE  SETTINGS  167 

All  the  earlier  stories  deal  with  the  present  time.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  Kipling1  that,  coming  now  to  deal  with  the  past,  he 
should  instinctively  refuse  to  treat  it  as  the  past  at  all,  should 
revivify  it,  bring  it  forward  into  the  present.  He  is  still  writer 
of  fiction,  journalist,  eager  for  the  interesting  fact.  He  is, 
manifestly,  not  an  historian. 

These  extensions  of  time  and  place  are  accompanied  by  corre- 
sponding extension  in  the  dramatis  person-ae  of  the  stories.  He 
still  regularly  connects  his  characters  with  the  organization  in 
which  they  serve,  sees  them  as  parts  of  a  system,  effective  or 
non-effective,  rather  as  members  of  the  team  than  as  individuals. 
To  the  Anglo-Indian  army  and  government,  which  he  does  not 
altogether  forsake,  he  now  adds  the  English  army  in  South 
Africa ;  he  adds  the  navy ;  the  Roman  army  in  England ;  he 
personifies  inanimate  machinery  and  studies  team  play  in  the 
parts  of  a  ship,  or  in  the  functions  of  a  locomotive  as  a  citizen 
of  the  railway,  so  to  speak.  Polo  ponies  preach  team  work  to 
one  another  in  the  intervals  of  the  game,  and  individual  rights, 
as  opposed  to  those  of  a  society  in  which  everyone  plays  an 
appointed  part,  are  vigorously  condemned  by  the  chance  gather- 
ing of  horses  in  a  Vermont  pasture  and  reduced  to  a  tragic 
absurdity  by  the  bees  in  The  Mother  Hive. 

It  is  perhaps  primarily  as  the  final  perfection  of  order,  of 
system,  that  machinery  comes  to  figure  so  largely  in  Kipling's 
later  stories.  It  is  this  conception  of  his  engines  that  the  old 
engineer  celebrates   in  Mc Andrew's  Hymn: 

Interdependence  absolute,  foreseen,  ordained,  decreed, 

To  work,  Ye '11  note,  at  any  tilt  an'  every  rate  o'  speed. 

Fra  skylight -lift  to  furnace-bars,  backed,  bolted,  braced  an'  stayed, 

An'  singin'  like  the  Mornin '  Stars  for  joy  that  they  are  made, 


L68  KIPLING   TEE  ST0E1    M  BITES 

While,  out  o'  touch  o'  vanity,  the  sweatin'  thrust-block  Bays: 
"Nol  onto  us  the  praise,  or  man     not  unto  us  the  praise!" 
Now,  a'  together,  hear  them  lii't  their  lesson-  theirs  an1  mine: 
"Law,  Orrder,   Duty   an'   Restraint,  Obedience,   Discipline!' 

This  is  an  excellenl  interpretation  of  such  stories  as  Th  ship 
thai  Found  Herself  and  007}  Th<  King  contains  valuable  com- 
mentary upon  others. 

"Bomance!"  the  Season-tickets  mourn, 
//'  never  ran  to  catch  his  train, 

But    passed   "with   coach   ami    guard   and    horn — 

And   lH't    the   Ideal — late  again!" 
Confound   Romance!  "...  Aud  all  unseen 
Bomance  brought   up  the   bine-fifteen. 

His  hand   was  on   the    lever   laid, 

His  oil-can  soothed  the  worrying  cranks, 

His  whistle  waked  the  snowbound  grade, 
His  fog-horn  cut  the  reeking  Banks; 

In  dock  and  deep  and  mine  and  mill 

The    Bo\  god   reckless  laboured  still. 


i^ 


Kolied,  crowned  and  throned,  he  wove  his  spell, 

"Where    heart-blood    beat   or    hearth-smoke    curled, 

With   unconsidered   miracle, 

Hedged  in  a  backward-gazing  world; 

Then  taught  his  chosen  bard  to  say: 

' '  The  King  was  with  us — yesterday !  ' ' 

Certainly  this  extension  of  his  field,  the  celebration  of  the 
romance  of  machinery  of  today  and  tomorrow,  is  a  marked 
development  of  his  last  period.      Ships,  locomotives,  motor  cars 


2  As  far  back  as  1889  Kipling  had  in  mind  the  main  idea  of  .007.  Vis- 
iting the  shops  at  Jamalpur  he  observed  that  "Engines  are  the  'livest' 
things  that  man  ever  made.  They  glare  through  their  spectacle-plates, 
tlev  tilt  their  noses  contemptuously,  and  when  their  insides  are  gone  they 
adorn  themselves  with  red  lead,  and  leer  like  decayed  beauties."  Zola, 
too,  had  the  trick  of  communicating  to  things  a  mysterious  life:  a  loco- 
motive goes  mad  in  his  La  Bete  Rumaine. 


THE  SETTINGS  169 

(steam  and  gas),  wireless  telegraphy,  bridge  building,  and  air- 
ships are  all  represented,  all  play  romantic  or  stirring  parts  in 
these  later  stories.  They  are  depicted  with  a  wealth  of  detail 
and  a  mass  of  unintelligible  terms  that  are  absolutely  convincing 
to  the  layman.  The  ordinary  reader  understands  the  activities 
of/The  Bridge  Builders,  the  repair  of  the  engines  in  The  Devil 
and  the  Deep  Sea,  the  operation  of  the  airships  in  The  Night 
Mail  just  as  little  as  if  he  were  observing  with  his  own  eyes. 
And  therefore  they  produce  the  illusion  of  reality.  If,  as  a 
bridge  builder  assures  me,  Kipling's  bridge  building  is  nonsense, 
all  the  rest  of  his  mechanics  may  be  nonsense  too;  but  that  does 
not  signify.  He  is  writing  fiction;  his  business  is  to  entertain, 
to  produce  an  illusion,  and  in  that  he  is  eminently  successful. 
It  is  mainly  a  matter  of  vocabulary;  understanding  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  mechanics  is  not  required.  Consequently  invention  is 
easy.  It  is  no  great  achievement  to  design  and  operate  an 
airship  which  shall,  in  a  story,  by  means  of  a  mass  of  technical 
terms,  produce  the  illusion  of  flying  across  the  Atlantic  in  a 
single  night,  Kipling  throws  himself  into  the  task  with  enthu- 
siasm, and  writes  not  only  the  sketch  (for  it  is  not  a  short-story) 
of  With  the  Night  Mail,  but  the  whole  of  the  periodical  in  which 
it  appears,  in  the  .year  2000,  with  technical  reviews,  notes,  adver- 
tisements concerning  aeroplanes,  dirigibles,  and  their  parts, 
answers  to  correspondents,  and  so  on.  Thus  he  adds  the  future, 
as  well  as  the  past,  to  the  time-settings  of  this  final  period. 

His  machinery,  interesting  enough  in  itself,  naturally  be- 
comes more  so  when  it  is  combined  with  human  character  and 
passion  to  make  true  short-stories.  It  is  in  these  that  one  finds 
the  real  romance  of  machinery,  the  romance  par  excellence  of 
the  modern  world. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

As  with  settings,  so  with  characters;  the  old  arc  retained, 
whether  unchanged  or  transformed,  and  new  are  added.  Old 
friends,  indeed,  are  mentioned  by  name:  Strickland,  once  of  the 
police,  now  retired,  with  his  wife  (who  was  .Miss  Youghal)  and 
son,  and  Stalky,  all  appear  in  A  Deal  in  Cotton.  In  Garm  there 
is  a  shadowy  glimpse  of  Ortheris,  and,  still  more  shadowy,  of 
Alnlvaney.  Lispeth  and  Strickland  reappear  in  Kim.  Thus 
dots  Kipling,  now  himself  a  classic,  make  literary  allusions  to 
his  own  works,  confident  that  a  well-read  public  will  not  fail  to 
understand  and  appreciate.  Old  friends,  again,  appear  under 
new  names;  the  bridge  builders,  and  the  officials  who  fight  the 
famine  (in  William  tht  Conqueror)  look  uncommonly  like  those 
who  performed  similar  functions  in  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy. 
rfhe  subaltern,  too,  persists;  Bobby  Wick,  the  hero  of  Onh/  n 
Subaltern,  appears  again  as  Georgie  Cottar  in  The  Brushwood 
Boy,  and  yet  again  as  .John  Chinn  in  Tht  Tomb  of  His  Ances- 
tors. Transformed  to  a  Norman  of  the  time  of  the  Conquest, 
he  displays  the  usual  tact  and  courage  of  Kipling's  heroes  in 
handling  the  natives;  transformed  once  again  to  Parnesius,  a 
centurion  of  the  Thirtieth,  he  displays  the  usual  devotion  to  The 
System  (which,  this  time,  is  Rome)  and  to  duty.  He,  too.  under- 
stands the  natives — because  he  himself  is  a  good  fellow  and  goes 
hunting  with  them  (as  John  Chinn  goes  out  with  the  Bhils). 
"There's  never  harm  in  a  Pict,"  he  says,  "if  you  take  the  trouble 


CHAFACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  171 

to  find  out  what  he  wants."  Similarly,  some  of  the  men  who 
appear  in  the  navy  stories,  notably  Pyeeroft  and  Hincheliffe, 
may  be  regarded  as  the  successors  of  the  soldiers  three.  But, 
while  they  are  not  without  wit  and  humor,  they  lack  the  senti- 
ment of  the  earlier  group ;  they  are  by  no  means  so  clearly  de- 
fined as  character-types,  so  human,  so  interesting.  The  society 
woman,  the  woman  of  the  Mrs.  Hauksbee  or  Mrs.  Reiver  type, 
disappears.      Stories  of  animals  continue. 

And  there  are  numerous  stories  of  children :  they  have  greater 
sweetness,  delicacy,  and  charm  than  those  of  the  earlier  period. 
It  is  the  pious  wish  of  all  fathers  that  their  children  may  be 
spared  that  which  they  themselves  have  suffered.  And  so  per- 
haps it  is  that  for  the  grim  childhood  of  Punch  and  Judy  (in 
Baa  Baa,  Black  Sheep)  Dan  and  Una  (in  Puck  and  Rewards 
and  Fairies)  receive  vicarious  compensation.  Theirs  is  a  care- 
free and  open-air  existence,  in  the  Weald  or  on  the  Downs  of 
Sussex,  a  corner  of  Merlin's  Isle  of  Gramarye  filled  with  roman- 
tic associations  and  peopled  for  the  brother  and  sister  by  Puck 
with  the  glorious  figures  of  its  past.  The  worst  of  Dan's 
troubles  is  the  struggle  with  Latin.  One  day  he  "said  the 
plural  of  'dominus'  was  'dominoes,'  and  when  Miss  Blake  said 
it  wasn't  he  said  he  supposed  it  was  'backgammon,'  and  so  he 
had  to  write  it  out  twice — for  cheek,  you  know."  But  he  was 
not  too  late  to  have  his  labors  enlivened  by  hearing  a  bit  of 
Roman  history  from  the  lips  of  Parnesius,  the  young  idealist 
who  had  helped  to  hold  the  Roman  Wall  against  Picts  and  Norse- 
men in  the  days  when  Maximus  was  emperor.  Dan  and  Una 
live  in  happy  independence  of  their  elders:  the  big  willow  in 
their  own  bit  of  fenced  wood  bears  the  sign  in  calico  and 
marking-ink,   "Grown-ups  not  allowed   in  the  Kingdom  unless 


L72  hiri.lM,    Till.   STOL'Y    WHITER 

brought."     Bu1  the  grown-ups  arc  all  friendly,  and  the  children 
choose  their  own  companions  from  the  class  that  children  love — 
the  kindly  men  who  do   interesting  things  with   their  hands 
Hobden,  the  hedger  and  poacher,  his  son   the   Bee   Boy,  "who 

is  not  quite  righl  in  his  head.'"  Phillips,  the  gardener,  old 
Mr.  Springett,  "builder,  contractor,  and  sanitary  engineer,"  Mr. 
Dudeney,  the  old  shepherd  of  the  Mint  village  on  the  Downs. 
Mr.  Kidbrooke,  the  carpenter,  and  "Cattiwow,"  the  teamster. 
Here  is  human  nature  in  its  most  agreeable  aspect.  If  Dan  had 
become  a  writer  of  stories  there  would  have  been  no  Plain  Tales 
from  tin  Hills  among  them. 

For  extensions  of  the  dramatis  personal  we  have  the  French 
Spy  {Bonds  of  Discipline),  and  the  Americans — naturally  it 
must  seem  to  ns  that  they  are  not  justly  portrayed — of  My  Sun- 
day at  Home  and  An  Error  in  the  Fourth  Dimension.  In 
Brother  Square-Toes  we  come  off  rather  better:  doubtless  because 
just  after  the  Revolution  we  had  not  yet  had  time  to  become 
very  American;  and  with  the  portrayal  of  our  countrymen  in 
.1//  Habitation  Enforced  we  can  have  no  quarrel  wdiatever. 

The  most  notable  extension,  however,  is  that  of  Puck  of 
Pook's  Hill  and  Rewards  and  Fairies.  Here,  as  we  have  seen, 
Kipling  contrives  to  unite  past  and  present;  Dan  and  Una, 
English  children  of  today,  listen  face  to  face  with  persons 
brought  for  their  benefit  by  their  friend  Puck  out  of  the  long- 
ago.  These  persons  are  not  dead:  they  have  somehow  contrived 
to  achieve  eternity  without  passing  through  nature.  They  do 
not  speak  of  their  own  deaths;  they  express  no  surprise  at  being 
lifted  out  of  their  own  time  and  deposited  in  ours.  Yet  they 
know  that  it  is  ours,  they  are  aware  of  some  of  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place.      They  seem,  in  thought,  to  hover  continually 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  173 

between  past  and  present.  "  Theodosius  the  emperor  is  a  good 
man,"  says  Parnesins,  yet  accepts  without  question  Dan  and 
Una  and  the  changed  England.  He,  like  the  "god"  Tyr,  is 
surprised  to  learn  that  the  wolves  are  gone ;  yet  both  seem  aware 
that  man}'  centuries  have  elapsed  since  their  own  days.  None 
of  these  figures  of  the  past  seems  to  regret  the  days  that  are  no 
more.  Hal  o'  the  Draft  was  born  at  Little  Lindens  fami  and 
passed  his  childhood  there.  He  can  stand  gazing  at  the  ancient 
red  farmhouse,  with  the  pigeons  and  the  bees  and  the  old 
spaniel,  "and  the  smell  of  the  box-tree  by  the  dairy -window 
mixed  with  the  smell  of  the  earth  after  rain,  bread  after  baking, 
and  a  tickle  of  wood  smoke  "  ;  he  can  gaze  at  this  exquisite  picture 
with  all  the  associations  of  home,  with  all  the  subtle  suggestions 
of  subtle  familiar  odors,  and  whisper  only,  "D'you  marvel  that 
I  love  it?  What  can  town  folk  know  of  the  nature  of  housen 
— or  land  ? ' '  Manifestly  it  is  better  so ;  colored  by  a  passionate 
regret  for  the  past  Pack  of  Pook's  Hill  would  be  a  different 
book ;  it  would  not  be  Kipling,  whose  characteristic  purpose  is  to 
celebrate  a  present  time  enriched  by  a  glorious  tradition. 

And  his  people  are  all  the  more  interesting  for  their  dateless- 
ness,  their  transcendence  of  time ;  they  are  far  more  effective 
than  mere  commonplace  ghosts  or  reincarnations.  Some  of 
them,  at  least,  are  historical  personages — Washington,  Napoleon, 
Talleyrand,  Sir  Francis  Drake.  One  of  the  most  telling  of  these 
dramatic  realizations  is  that  of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  Gloriana. 
To  turn  from  an  historian's  characterization,  from  J.  R.  Green's, 
for  example,  to  Kipling's,  is  like  raising  field  glasses  to  one's 
eyes ;  instantly  the  figure  seems  to  leap  toward  one,  though  in 
a  narrower  field  of  vision.  And  there  is  no  better  illustration 
of  the  special  short-story  art   of  the  rendering   of   description 


174  KIPL1  \>,   I  II I    ST0B1    n  l:l  I  EB 

in  narrative  terms.  Elizabeth,  Green  tells  us,  was  an  accom- 
plished scholar :  speaking  Eor  herself  in  Kipling's  pages  she 
says:  "Norgem  village  loyally  entertains  her  with...  a  Latin 
oration  spoken  by  the  parson,  for  whose  false  quantities,  if  I'd 
made  'em  in  my  girlhood,  L  should  have  been  whipped.  .  .  .  She 
stomachs  the  affront  to  her  scholarship."  "A  graceful  dancer," 
says  Green;  she  would  ■■dance  a  coranto  that  the  French  am- 
bassador, hidden  dextrously  behind  ;i  curtain,  mighl  report  her 
sprightliness  to  Ids  master.*'  And  Kipling:  "'She  took  off  her 
cloak  slowlv,  and  stood  forth  in  dove-colored  satin,  worked  over 
with  pearls  that  trembled  like  running  water  in  the  running 
shadows  of  the  trees. ...  She  swam  into  a  majestical  dance  of 
the  stateliest  balancings,  the  haughtiesl  wheelings  and  turnings 
aside,  the  mosl  dignified  sinkings,  the  gravest  risings,  all  joined 
together  by  the  elaboratest  interlacine;  steps  and  circles."  Thus 
one  mighl  go  through  Green's  exposition,  matching  each  gen- 
eralization with  an  illustration  from  Kipling.  Gloriana,  of 
course,  cannot  reveal  the  whole  of  her  many-sided  character  to 
Dan  and  l*na  :  yel  it  is  marvelous  how  many  of  her  traits  she 
does  contrive  to  express. 

Some  of  the  obscurer  persons  who  may  or  may  not  be  his- 
torical, are  still  more  interesting;  for  in  their  evocation  the 
author  works  with  a  freer  hand:  Hal  o'  the  Draft,  an  architect 
of  Henry  Vll*s  day;  Kadmiel,  the  Spanish  .lew,  who  dictated 
one  of  the  laws  and  forced  the  signing  of  Magna  Charta : 
Parnesius,  the  centurian';  the  "^od"  Tyr,  who,  to  protect  Ids 
people's  sheep  from  the  wolves,  gave  his  right  eye  for  the  first 
knife  seen  on  the  Downs,  and  so  won  his  godhead;  Tobias  Hirte, 
the  famous  Seneca  Oil  man,  a  kindly  Philadelphian  of  Wash- 
ington's time.      In  the  stories  of  Hugh  the  Saxon  and  Richard 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  L7.3 

the  Norman,  Kipling  enters  Scott's  chosen  field.  I  delight  in 
Scott,  but  these  four  tales  seem  to  me  to  surpass  Ivanhoc  in  just 
those  qualities  to  which  it  owes  its  charm :  in  vividness  and 
fullness  of  picturesque  detail,  in  complete  realization  of  scene 
and  character,  in  knightly  emulation  and  chivalric  sentiment 
and  loyalty.  And  of  the  two  writers  it  is  Kipling  who  carries 
his  archaeological  and  historical  lore  (whether  accurate  or  not 
does  not  signify  in  either  case)  the  more  lightly,  who  succeeds 
in  infusing  more  life  and  humanity  into  the  events  of  by-gone 
days,  and  who  is  the  more  successful  in  seeing  eleventh-century 
life  from  the  eleventh-century  point  of  view.  "He  was  yellow 
—not  from  sickness,  but  by  nature.  Yellow  as  honey,  and  his 
eyes  stood  endwise  in  his  head.  .  .  .  We  thought  he  was  a  devil." 
So  Sir  Kichard  saw  a  Chinaman.  "But  here  is  another  marvel. 
The  Yellow  Man  had  with  him  a  brown  box.  In  the  box  was  a 
blue  bowl  with  red  marks  upon  the  rim,  and  within  the  bowl, 
hanging  from  a  fine  thread,  was  a  piece  of  iron.  ...  In  this  iron, 
said  Witta,  abode  an  Evil  Spirit  which  the  Yellow  Man  had 
brought  by  Art  Magic  out  of  his  own  country  that  lay  three 
years'  journey  southward.  The  Evil  Spirit  strove  day  and 
night  to  return  to  his  country,  and  therefore,  look  you,  the  iron 
needle  pointed  continually  toward  the  South."  Down  on  the 
African  coast  they  "saw  a  great  Devil  come  out  of  the  forest. 
He  shaded  his  brows  with  his  hand,  and  moistened  his  pink 
tongue  between  his  lips.  .  .  .  Taller  than  a  man,  covered  "with 
reddish  hair.  When  he  had  well  regarded  our  ship,  he  beat 
on  his  breast  with  his  fist  till  it  sounded  like  rolling  drums,  and 
came  to  the  bank  swinging  all  his  body  between  his  long  arms 
and  gnashed  his  teeth  at  us."  Dan,  of  course,  is  not  slow  to 
recognize  mariner's  compass  and  gorilla. 


176  K1VL1SH    Till:   STOi;i     WHITER 

Of  a  very  differenl  age,  and  not  the  Least  engaging  of  these 

minor  figures  of  the  past  is  little  Philadelphia  Bucksteed,  the 
sixteen-year-old  girl  of  a  hundred  years  ;i-n.  «lm  t<*lls  Una  of 
an  episode  of  her  own  Life,  with  a  child's  ignorance  of  its  sig- 
nificance: "Her  clinks  were  pair  excepl  for  two  pretty  pink 
patches  in  the  middle,  and  she  talked  with  Little  gasps  at  the 
•  ■lid  of  her  sentences,  as  though  she  had  been  running.''...  Ber 
"stupid  cough,"  she  says,  "is  better  than  it  was  last  winter. 
It  will  disappear  in  London  air."  Dr.  Break  is  in  Love  with 
her,  and  so  is  Kent'  Laennec,  a  French  prisoner  on  parole, 
inventor  of  the  stethoscope.  But  she  does  not  know,  and  over- 
hears them  quarreling  without  understanding  that  she  is  the 
subject.  Nor  does  she  understand  Laennec  *s  saying  to  Dr. 
Break:  'If  yon  were  not  the  ignorant  which  yon  are,  you 
would  have  known  long  ago  that  the  subject  of  your  remarks 
is  not  for  any  living  man."  She  ^oes  on  to  tell  Ina  how  she 
presided  at  her  father's  table,  and  of  her  great  triumph  after 
dinner,  when  she  sang  a  new  song  from  London — "1  have 
given  my  heart  to  a  flower"  —"not  very  difficult  fingering,  but 
r-r-ravishing  sentiment." 

Philadelphia  coughed  and   cleared  her  throat. 

"I've  a  deep  voice  for  my  age  and  size,"  she  explained.  "Contralto, 
yon  know,  but  it  ought  to  be  stronger,"  and  she  began,  her  face  all  dark 
against  the  last  of  the  soft  pink  sunset: — 

'I  have  given  my  heart  to  a  flower, 
Though  I  know  it   is   fading  away ; 
Though  I  know  it  will  live  but  an  hour 
And  leave  me  to  mourn  its  decay !  ' 

"Isn't  that  touchingly  sAveet?  Then  the  last  vers< — I  wish  I  had  my 
harp,  dear — goes  as  low  as  my  register  will  reach."  She  drew  in  her  chin 
and  took  a  deep  breath: 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  111 

'  Ye  desolate  whirlwinds  that  rave 
I  charge  you  be  good  to  my  dear! 
She  is  all — she  is  all  that  I  have, 
And  the  time  of  our  parting  is  near!  ' 

"Beautiful!"   said   Una.       "And   did  they  like   it?" 

"Like  it?  They  were  overwhelmed — accables,  as  Bene  says.  My  dear, 
if  I  hadn't  seen  it,  I  shouldn't  have  believed  that  I  could  have  drawn 
tears,  genuine  tears,  to  the  eyes  of  four  grown  men.  But  I  did!  Bene 
simply  couldn  't  endure  it !  He 's  all  French  sensibility.  He  hid  his  face 
and  said,  'Asses  Mademoiselle .'  C'est  plus  fort  que  moi!  Assez!'  While 
Dad  sat  with  the  tears  simply  running  down  his  cheeks. ' ' 

"And  what  did  Dr.  Break  do?" 

"He  got  up  and  pretended  to  look  out  of  the  window,  but  I  saw  his 
little  fat  shoulders  jerk  as  if  he  had  the  hiccoughs.  That  was  a  triumph. 
I  never  suspected  him  of  sensibility." 

It  is  because  we  interpret  these  expressions  of  emotion  not 
as  "sensibility"  but  as  genuine  grief,  because  we  see  more  in 
the  story  than  the' child  who  tells  it,  that  it  has  for  us  a  peculiar 
and  special  charm.  It  is  the  method  of  His  Majesty  the  Kmg, 
again,  of  Kidnapped,  and  To  be  Filed  for  Reference,  the  essen- 
tially short-story  technique  of  suggestion.  Philadelphia,  herself 
wholly  unconscious  of  the  true  pathos  of  the  situation,  charms 
us  by  her  youth  and  beauty,  her  buoyancy,  her  vigor  of  person- 
ality, her  cleverness  and  audacity.  The  heroine,  as  it  happens, 
of  a  sentimental  tale,  she  is  herself  anything  but  sentimental. 
In  the  very  climax  of  the  sentimental  scene  in  her  own  story  she 
saw  Dr.  Break's  "little  fat  shoulders  jerk  as  if  he  had  the 
hiccoughs. ' '  She  is  a  true  daughter  of  Kipling ;  and  Kipling 
can  no  more  be  consistently  sentimental  in  his  last  period  than 
he  could  in  his  first — recall  the  grotesque  touches  in  Thrown 
Away,  and  the  grotesque  incident  at  the  close  of  Only  a  Sub- 
altern. 


L78  KIPLING  THE  sun;)    »i  i;i i  /■;/.* 

All  the  more  interesting,  then,  is  this  experimenl  in  senti- 
tnentalism  for  Kipling  dors  here  induce  and  delighl  in  emotion 
for  its  own  sake  this  momentary  reconstruction  of  a  sentimental 
age,  the  age  when  tuberculosis  was  fashionable  and  interesting, 
the  age  of  thai  American  Ode  to  Consumption-  beginning, 
"There  is  a  beauty  in  woman's  decay" — of  Irving's  The  Wife 
and  Tin  Broken  Heart,  of  Nodier's  La  Fillcuh  du  Seigneur. 
This  story  was  written  in  1806,  when  Rem''  Laennec  was  twenty- 
five  years  old.  perhaps  at  the  moment  when  he  was  a  prisoner 
in  England,  weeping  over  Philadelphia's  song;.  Philadelphia, 
then,  and  Suzanne,  Nodier's  heroine  who  was  also  of  the  senti- 
mental age,  sixteen  were  contemporaries.  Bu1  Suzanne  is  of 
an  utterly  different  type.  Her  eyes  haggard,  her  cheeks  red 
and  burning,  she  lies  passive  upon  her  bed.  "There  was  not 
much  that  was  pleasing  in  her  features;  one  saw  there  only  the 
touching  and  impassioned  expression  which  has  the  power  to 
embellish  all."  She  is  as  typically  a  creature  of  Nodier  and  the 
year  1806,  as  is  Philadelphia  of  Kipling  and  the  year  1910. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  additions  of  the  third  period  to 
Kipling's  dramatis  pasonac.  From  these  instances  it  is  already 
clear  that  they  have  the  power  of  revealing  themselves  in  the 
dramatic  way,  they  require  no  author's  explanation.  Yet  as  of 
old,  Kipling  feels  the  necessity  of  comment,  and  in  Puck  of 
Pook's  Hill  and  Rewards  and  Fairies,  permits  Puck  to  put  in 
a  word  here  and  there  for  the  benefit  of  the  children. 

There  is  no  great  extension  of  the  psychological  field;  the 
motives  and  emotions  of  the  third  period  are  for  the  most  part 
as  simple  and  as  elemental  as  those  of  the  first.  Kipling  has 
lost  none  of  his  old  power  of  tempering  his  own  mind  to  enter 
another's  soul.      He  is  aware  of  a  god's  passionate  regret  for 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  179 

lost  human  love  and  friendship,  joy  and  sorrow.  Yet  here,  as 
is  usual  with  him,  the  main  interest  of  the  story  is  not  psycho- 
logical, as  it  is  in  Maupassant's  Le  Bapteme,  which  is  comparable 
with  Kipling- 's  The  Knife  and  the  Naked  Chalk  in  so  far  as  both 
deal  with  men  isolated  from  their  kind  by  their  divine  calling. 
In  a  few  of  these  late  stories,  however,  and  these  are  among  the 
best,  there  is  a  subtlety  and  complexity  unusual  with  Kipling. 
In  "Th<  y"  as  in  His  Majesty  the  King  we  are  invited  to  follow 
the  line  of  emotion  of  one  who  does  not  understand  the  events 
in  which  he  plays  a  part.  But  in  "They"  he  is  a  mature  man 
confronted  by  a  situation  which  is  intricate  and  elusive  even 
for  the  reader;  in  His  Majesty  the  King  he  is  a  child,  with  the 
simple  reactions  of  a  child  upon  a  completely  obvious  situation. 
It  is  in  An  Habitation  Enforced,  however,  that  one  finds  the 
greatest  variety  of  emotions,  the  subtlest  and  yet  firmest  treat- 
ment of  them,  as  well  as  the  most  delicate  humor  and  most  com- 
pelling sentiment.  Nowhere  else  is  the  contrast  of  the  American 
with  the  English  point  of  view  so  admirably  drawn.  George, 
for  example,  is  too  much  of  an  American  to  be  happy  merely 
as  a  rich  man's  son;  he  feels  that  he  must  work,  not  to  add  to 
his  four  or  five  millions,  but  simply  to  retain  the  respect  of  his 
wife.  Work  is  a  "principle,"  an  end  in  itself,  it  has  no  object; 
but  as  the — from  the  American  point  of  view — idle  owner  of 
Friars  Pardon,  he  finds  himself  working  ten  hours  a  day,  putting 
in,  as  he  says,  half  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  his  time  to  fulfil 
the  claims  which  place  and  people  make  upon  him.  But  it  is~ 
work  with  a  purpose,  unselfish  work,  sane,  quiet,  wholesome, 
an  effective  remedy  for  the  nervous  prostration  which  had  re- 
sulted from  the  American  game.  Time  is  no  object :  a  new  floor 
is  contemplated  for  the  drawing-room,   and  oak  is  put  by   to 


180  KIPLING    I  III    STOBI    WR1TL  5 

season  for  seven  years;  "  Lord  !  What  \s  a  hundred  years  !  "  says 
Whybarne,  who  lias  seen  Beventy-eighl  of  them;  and  the  Lash- 
mar's  unit  to,  "Wayte  awhyle — Wayte  awhyle,"  is  the  recurrenl 
refrain  of  the  story. 

This  national  contrast,  however,  is  a  relatively  obvious 
matter.  More  subtle  is  the  appeal  of  Friars  Pardon  to  the 
Chapmans  and  the  way  that  it  takes  possession  of  them  after 
they  become  its  owners.  At  the  very  beginning  they  are  sub- 
jected to  an  exquisite  charm  of  house  and  landscape,  of  which 
the  reader  is  no  less  aware  than  they.      Old   Iggulden's  death 

al there  is,  as  Sophie  says,  a  Leading:  they  feel  that  the  place 

net  ds  them.  And  when  she  discovers  her  mother's  maiden  name 
carved  on  blue  flagstone  in  the  floor  of  the  Pardons'  Pew,  she 
'"shut  her  eyes  against  a  burning  that  felt  like  tears."  The 
reader  is  const  rained  to  follow  her  example — just  why.  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say.  All  the  emotions  connected  with  the  coming 
of  the  child — the  father's  and  the  mother's,  the  tenants'. 
Lady  Conant's — are  subtly  modified  and  idealized  through  the 
influence  of  the  place  and  its  traditions. 

In  the  descriptions  of  these  motives  and  states  of  mind  there 
is  no  significant  departure  from  the  methods  of  the  earlier 
stories.  Like  tin1  characters,  they  reveal  themselves  mainly 
through  action  and  spoken  word.  Perhaps  the  tendency  to 
evoke  the  reader's  sympathy  by  emphasis  upon  the  expression 
of  emotion  has  become  somewhat  more  marked.  The  tears  of 
Philadelphia's  father  and  lovers  are  a  case  in  point.  for 
laughter,  there  is  a  passage  in  The  Wrong  Thmg  where  the 
King's  knighting  Hal,  not  for  his  beautiful  design  for  the 
figurehead  of  a  ship  but  for  saving  him  thirty  pounds  by  advis- 
ing him  againsl   its  execution,  excites  uncontrollable  mirth;  or 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  181 

Kipling's  own,  in  My  Sunday  at  Home,  and  in  The  Puzzler. 
This  robust  expression  of  emotion  is  a  kind  of  guarantee  of  its 
reality.  The  shoulders  of  your  sentimentalist  never  shake, 
whether  with  tears  or  with  laughter. 

With  the  passion  of  love  Kipling  is  concerned  even  less  than 
in  the  earlier  periods.  It  plays  a  part  in  William  the  Conqueror. 
It  is  incidental  only  in  Young  Men  at  the  Manor  as  it  is  in  Mark- 
lake  Witches.  The  old  cynicism  has  wholly,  or  almost  wholly, 
disappeared;  the  seventh  commandment  passes  unscathed.  Love 
is  treated  ideally  in  the  only  love  story  of  the  period,  the  only 
one  after  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  in  The  Brushwood  Boy, 
which  is  thus  to  be  regarded  as  the  culmination  of  Kipling's 
art  in  this  way.  It  illustrates,  as  we  have  already  seen,  his 
new  delight  in  the  beauty  and  sacred  associations  of  the  English 
landscape  with  its  sentiment  of  home;  it  illustrates  his  old  de- 
light in  the  effective  young  English  officer.  Moreover,  in  its 
early  portion  at  least,  there  are  some  characteristically  charming 
glimpses  of  life  from  the  child's  point  of  view. 

The  main  impression  made  by  The  Brushwood  Boy  upon  the 
student  of  technique  is  that  it  goes  beyond  the  strict  limits  of 
the  short-story.  It  attempts  to  cover  a  period  of  twenty  or 
twenty-five  years,  not,  like  Rip  Van  Winkle  or  La  Combe  a 
I 'Homme  Mort,  the  beginning  and  end  of  such  a  period,  merely, 
but  the  whole  of  the  time.  Unlike  Irving  and  Nodier,  again, 
Kipling  continually  shifts  the  scene,  from  an  unplaced  nursery 
to  Oxford-on-a-visit,  from  Oxford  to  a  public  school,  to  Sand- 
hurst, to  India,  to  a  steamer  in  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Bay 
of  Biscay,  to  an  English  house  and  park,  and  to  Bassett  and 
the  downs  near  by.  For  all  these  places  there  are  special  social 
groups :  housekeeper,  nurse  and  policeman ;  actors  at  the  panto- 


182  KIPL1  \<:   THE  8T0B1     WRU  I  R 

mime,  the  grown  person  who  sal  behind  Georgie  and  bored  liim 
wit  1 1  futile  explanations  until  he  asked  in  despair,  "Why  don'1 
yon  go  to  sleep  in  the  afternoons,  same  as  Provosl  of  Oriel?"; 
Georgie's  school-fellows,  the  public  who  watched  the  cricket 
games,  the  wise  and  temperate  head-master;  Georgie's  seniors 
at  Sandhurst;  Ins  fellow  officers  in  India;  his  men;  the  colonel's 
wife;  Mrs.  Corporal  .Morrison;  Mfs.  Zuleika ;  Georgie's  father 
and  mother;  the  coachman,  the  groom,  and  the  under-keeper ; 
the  men  a1  liis  father's  club;  Georgie's  friends,  the  officers  who 
lived  in  cheap  lodgings;  the  young  people  who  fell  into  the 
iront  ponds,  picnicked,  and  tennised;  Miriam  and  her  mother. 
Here  are  extent  of  time,  breadth  of  scene,  number  of  dramatis 
persona*  suitable  for  the  large  canvas  of  a  novel.  Add  to 
these  the  parallel-running  years  of  dreams,  the  vague  and  vast 
geography  of  the  dream-world;  add  "Them,"  and  "It."  and 
Policeman  Day;  add  "AnnieonLouise,"  the  princess  of  those 
dreams.  For  Miriam,  as  the  little  girl  seen  at  the  theatre, 
usurps  the  place  of  the  fairy  princess  in  Georgie's  self-told  tales 
and  in  the  dreams  that  follow;  she  is  the  dream  heroine  of  a 
mysterious  land,  approached  through  difficulty  and  peril;  the 
descendant,  therefore,  like  Ameera,  of  the  fairies  of  lai  and 
folk  tale. 

Many  of  these  personages  are  something  more  than  human 
audits,  types  at  least  if  nol  individuals.  Georgie's  father  and 
mother  illustrate  some  of  ihe  characteristic  differences  between 
husband  and  wife  the  one  blunderingly  unconscious  of  the 
schemes  of  the  other.  Mrs.  Znleika  is  own  sister  to  Mrs.  Hanks 
bee  or  Mrs.  Mallowe.  And  Miriam,  dimly  seen  as  she  is — she 
has   not   half  the   individuality  of  Miss  Philadelphia   Bucksteed 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  183 

of  Marklake  Witches — Miriam  herself  has  an  equipment  of  pride 
and  accomplishments  sufficient  for  a  dream  heroine. 

Georgie  himself  is  the  usual  subaltern  hero,  brother  to  Bobby 
Wick  and  the  rest,  a  superlative  person,  with  a  character  worth 
much  fine  gold;  he  combines  the  social  charm  of  Chaucer's 
Aurelius — not  his  sentimentalism — with  the  practical  effective- 
ness of  Arveragus.  Unlike  Stalky  and  his  friends,  he  is  a  great 
cricketer,  a  leader  among  his  fellows,  interested  in  the  tone  of 
his  school.  Like  Bobby  Wick  he  learns  to  know  his  men,  and 
like  Ouless  wins  their  affection  by  way  of  boxing.  This  emphasis 
upon  the  practical,  matter-of-fact  quality  of  Georgie 's  character, 
upon  his  physical  and  mental  soundness,  upon  his  lack  of  all 
self-consciousness,  upon  his  preoccupation  with  the  regiment,  is 
organically  necessary  in  the  interests  of  verisimilitude  and  con- 
trast. The  dreams  of  a  mere  dreamer  would  be  less  interesting 
and  less  significant. 

More  than  any  other  story  of  Kipling's  The  Brushwood  Boy 
is,  necessarily,  concerned  with  the  psychological  history  of  the 
hero.  It  is  characteristic,  however,  that  this  inner  life  should 
be  a  succession,  not  of  mere  moods  or  passions  or  motives,  but 
of  concrete  events,  full  of  horse-exercise  and  vigorous  movement. 
The  dream  narrative  is  simply  another  story  running  alongside 
the  real.  Yet  the  dream  psychology  is  sound :  the  inconsequence, 
the  topsy-turvy  nature,  the  melting  and  shifting  outlines  of 
persons  and  places,  the  taking  up  of  suggestions  from  the  real 
world,  are  all  faithfully  rendered.  Inevitably,  in  the  final 
scene,  the  love-making  takes  the  familiar  form  of  exchange  of 
reminiscence,  unusually  impassioned,  however,  because  of  the 
strangeness  of  the  earlier  meetings.  Just  here  one  finds  the  char- 
acteristic short-comings  of  Kipling :  he  takes  refuge  in  stating 


JS4  KIPLING    I  III.   ST0B1    WBI1  I  5 

thai  Georgie  "found  himself  with  parched  lips,1  saying  things 
thai  up  till  then  he  believed  existed  only  in  printed  works  of 
fiction."  One  can'1  bu1  wish  thai  Miriam  had  no1  said  "Good 
God,"  and  that  the  jesl  aboul  the  horses  quickening  their  pace 
had  been  omitted.2  Perhaps  it  is  hypercritical  to  regard  these 
as  breaks  in  tune;  one  must  remember  Georgie's  training,  winch 
had  taught  him  to  distrust  emotion  and  to  wear  the  public-school 
mask.  And  the  Love  story  as  a  whole  does  remain  in  the  world 
of  the  ideal  :  this  is  the  significant  matter.  There  is  no  cynicism, 
no  seamy  side,  nothing  to  indicate  that  (ieorgie  and  Miriam  did 
not  Live  happily  ever  after.  We  have  come  a  long  way  from 
Tht  Gadsbys,  The  Hill  of  Illusion.  H< i/ond  tin  Pale,  and  With- 
out I'x  in  fit  of  Cl<  rgy. 

A  plot  involving  such  extended  settings,  so  many  characters, 
and  such  a  complete  account  of  the  inner  life,  presents  a  difficult 
task  for  the  narrative  art.  It  will  not  he  easy  to  translate  this 
mass  of  material  into  terms  of  concrete  speech  and  action.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  task  is  an  impossible  one;  inevitably  most 
of  tin-  early  part  of  the  story  consists  of  summary.  Il  is,  once 
more,  the  summary  of  a  genius  with  a  keen  sense  of  fact;  it  is 
always  interesting;  it  is  continually  adorned  by  illustrative  con- 
versation and  incident  ;  it  is  never  abstract,  never  concerned  with 
general  questions  of  any  soil.  Vet  it  is  summary;  and  it  is 
very  lone.  The  account  of  the  dreams  docs,  it  must  he  ad- 
mitted, grow  somewhat  monotonous.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
repetition,  and  one  is  driven   to  remember  that  rule  of  conduct 


i  See  also:  "He  was  aware  that  his  mouth  was  dry  and  unknown  pulses 
were  beating  in  the  roof  of  it.''  Kipling  remains  so  far  true  to  the  "natur- 
alistic" method  as  not  to  forget  the  purely  physical  reactions. 

2  See  also  the  Mrs.  Zuleika  incident;  the  treatment  of  Georgie's  friends, 
etc.;  the  "creamy''  voice,  for  which  Kipling  himself  apologizes.  This  is 
similar  to  Una's  liking  for  "lacey"  tunes  that  suggest  to  her  "treacle 
on  porridge,"  in  Rewards  and  Fairies. 


CHABACTEBS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  183 


which  includes  the  narration  of  one's  dreams  among  the  "things 
that  no  fellow  can  do."  Yet  this  narrative  has  its  organic 
function  in  the  story :  the  threads  of  dream  life  are  spun  out  at 
length  in-order  that  the  closing  scenes  may  gather  them  up  and 
weave  them  significantly  into  a  complex  web.  All  the  details 
are  used  with  telling  effect.  One  does  not  remember  any  sit- 
uation in  a  short-story  more  distinctly  or  vividly  than  the  scene 
of  Georgie  's  first  recognition  of  Miriam — he  outside  in  the  moon- 
lit rose  garden,  she  at  the  piano  within,  singing, 

Over  the  edge  of  the  purple  down, 

Where  the  single  lamplight  gleams, 
Know  ye  the  road  to  the  Merciful  Toavu 

That  is  hard  by  the  Sea  of  Dreams — 
Where  the  poor  may  lay  their  wrongs  away, 

And  the  sick  forget  to  weep? 
But  we — pity  us!       Oh,  pity  us! 

We  wakeful;   ah  pity  us!  — 
We  must  go  back  with  Policeman  Day — 

Back  from  the  City  of   Sleep! 


Over  the  edge  of  the  purple  down, 

Ere    the   tender    dreams    begin, 
Look — we  may  look — at  the  Merciful  Town, 

But  we  may  not  enter  in! 
Outcasts  all,  from  her  guarded  wall 

Back  to  our  watch  we  creep: 
We — pity  us!    ah,  pity  us! 

We  wakeful;   oh  pity  us!  — 
We  that  go  back  with  Policeman  Day — 

Back  from  the  City  of   Sleep! 

Thus  she  reveals  her  acquaintance  with  Policeman  Day  and  the 
City  of  Sleep,  hard  by  the  Sea  of  Dreams,  and  implies  the  twenty 
years  of  her  supernatural  connection  with  Georgie 's  life.      The 


L86  KIPLING   THE  STOBT   WRITER 

scene  or  situation  is  brief,  scarcely  more  than  a  page  even 
with  the  song;  its  extreme  effectiveness  is  due  to  the  care  with 
which  it  is  foreshadowed.  Its  brevity,  moreover,  has  a  purpose: 
it  must  not  reveal  too  much,  it  must  no1  take  from  the  interesl 
of  tin-  second  recognition  scene/  wherein  .Miriam  is  to  learn 
of  Georgie's  pari  in  her  dream  life,  and  both,  that  they  have 
had.  from  the  beginning,  every  dream  experience  in  common. 
The  manifest  purpose  of  the  Ion?  summary  of  the  events  of  the 
real  world  which  precedes  these  scenes  is  to  establish  the  char- 
acter of  Georgie,  to  emphasize  the  long  duration  of  Ins  dream 
intimacy  and  Ins  constancy  to  it;  and  to  make  the  reader  so 
thoroughly  familiar  with  these  matters  that  he  feels  at  once 
the  full  force  of  the  final  scenes. 

Moral  interpretation  of  character  and  action  is  not  Lacking. 
For  private  morality,  Georgie's  excellence  lies  mainly  in  his 
avoiding  "those  things  which  no  fellow  can  do,"  which  is  Less 
a  matter  of  the  development  of  independent  moral  judgment, 
than  an  incentive  to  right  and  respectable  living.  For  nobl< sst 
dbligi  is  hereditary  morality,  and  like  hereditary  wealth,  says 
nothing  as  to  the  essential  virtue  of  the  possessor.  Georgie's 
phrase  is  rather  neatly  ridiculed  in  Hcdda  Gabler,  where  when 
Iledda  kills  herself  someone  exclaims,  "But  people  don't  do  such 
things!"  The  old  woman  too,  in  The  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  has 
something  to  say  in  criticism  of  the  notion  that  gentilessi  is  a 
monopoly  of  the  high-horn.  Georgie  has  learned  to  keep  his 
pores  open  and  his  mouth  shut  ;  you  cannot  imagine  him  raising 


3  Here  again  we  are  dealing  with  a  variation  of  an  ancient  folk-lore 
motif,  which  is  older  than  the  Odyssey — the  recognition  winch  follows  the 
"wanderer's  return."  It  occurs,  for  example,  in  the  Romance  of  King 
Horn,  the  ballad  of  Hind  Horn,  in  the  ballad  of  Fair  Annie,  and  in  Lai 
U  Frene.  In  these  cases  the  hero  knows,  and  like  Odysseus,  has  only  to 
disclose  his  identity. 


CEABACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  187 

any  question  as  to  the  morality  of  the  Border  campaign  in  which 
he  plays  such  an  effective  role.  For  he  is,  above  all  else,  part 
of  The  System.  He  wins  respect  by  obedience  to  his  superiors; 
he  learns  to  know  his  men,  not  that  they  may  profit  as  human 
beings,  but  that  they  too  may  be  better  soldiers,  revolve  more 
surely  and  powerfully  as  wheels  in  the  machine.  All  this  is  in 
keeping  with  the  moral  notions  of  the  earlier  stories.  Yet  there 
is  no  more  of  the  youthful  protest  against  commonly  accepted 
rules  of  conduct ;  celebration  of  the  virtues  of  the  vicious  has 
altogether  ceased. 

As  a  child  of  six  George  Cottar  was  in  the  habit  of  telling 
himself  stories  as  he  lay  in  bed.  "The  princess  of  his  tales 
was  a^person  of  wonderful  beauty  (she  came  from  the  old 
illustrated  edition  of  Grimm  ...)....  He  gave  her  the  two  finest 
names  he  had  ever  heard  in  his  life — Annie  and  Louise,  pro- 
nounced 'Anniefl/* Louise. '  The  night  after  he  met  the  little 
girl  in  the  theatre  at  Oxford-on-a- visit,  "he  made  a  new  tale, 
from  which  he  shamelessly  removed  the  Rapunzel-Rapunzel-let- 
down-your-hair-princess,  gold  crown,  Grimm  edition,  and  all. 
and  put  a  new  Anniea?/ Louise  in  her  place."  Kipling  obviously 
alludes  to  the  story  of  the  girl  imprisoned  by  an  enchantress 
in  a  tower  which  had  neither  stairs  nor  door,  but  only  a  little 
window  at  the  top.  Rapunzel's  hair  had  to  serve  as  a  ladder. 
When  the  witch  wished  to  enter  she  placed  herself  beneath  the 
window  and  cried, 

Rapunzel,  Rapunzel, 

Let  down  thy  hair! 

A  king's  son  passing  the  tower  heard  a  song  which  was  so  charm- 
ing that  he  stood  still  and  listened.  This  was  Rapunzel,  who  in 
her  solitude  passed  her  time  in  letting  her  sweet  voice  resound. 


KIPLING    l  III-    STORI   WBITEB 

The  prince,  overhearing  the  formula  and  observing  the  method 
of  entrance,  gol  to  the  top  of  the  town1,  won  Rapunzel's  Love, 
and  carried  her  off.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  writing  a  fairy 
story  of  liis  own   Kipling  should  have  had  in  mind  one  of  the 

Household  Tdhs.  Vet  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  he 
found  in  Rapunzel  the  hint  for  Tin  Brushwood  Boy.  Another 
version  of  the  fairy  talc,  however,  may  eoneeivably  have  served 
;iv  thr  conecting  link,  the  Rapunzel  of  William  Morris,  in  Th< 
/)( f<  no  of  Guenevere.  There  is  the  same  recurrent  refrain, 
"Rapunzel,  Rapunzel,  Let  down  your  hair."  Morris's  sig- 
nificant additions  are  the  lovers"  foreknowledge  of  one  another 
and  the  words  of  the  song  which  Rapunzel  sings  from  her  tower: 

Yea,  often  in  that  happy  trance, 

Beside  the  blessed  countenance 

Of  golden  Michael,  on  the  spire 

Glowing  all   crimson   in   the   fire 

Of  sunset,  I  behold  a  face, 

Which  sometime,  if  God  give  me  grace, 

May  kiss  me  in  this  very  place. 

And  the  Prince  recalls  a  song  the  dreamy  harper  sang  of  yore 
foretelling  that  he  should  one  day  find  a  maid  clothed  in  her 
yellow  rippled  hair. 

The  impulse,  if  it  came  to  Kipling  at  all  from  this  source, 
doubtless  came  subconsciously.  For  the  resemblance  is  slight 
enough,  and  valuable  mainly  as  pointing  the  contrast :  where 
.Morris  medievalized  the  story  and  laid  the  scene  in  France,  Kip- 
ling modernized  it  and  laid  the  scene  in  India  and  England. 
With  Kipling,  too,  the  story  becomes  not  only  more  vivid  and 
more  real  but  more  dramatic  as  well.  It  is  enlightening  to 
trace  the  development  of  the  scene  in  which  the  hero  overhears 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  189 

the  heroine's  song,  from  the  hint  in  the  German  tale,  through 
the  lyrical  elaboration  in  Morris's  version,  to  the  dramatic  climax 

— 

of JThe  Brushwood  Boy. 

There  are  other  rough  parallels  to  Kipling's  story.  He, 
like  everyone  else  in  the  early  nineties,  doubtless  read  Du 
Maurier's  Peter  Ibbetson.  There,  however,  the  dream  life 
merely  carries  on  an  earlier  relation.  For  the  reversal  of  the 
order — the  dream  beginning  and  real  life  ending  (Georgie's 
glimpse  of  Miriam  as  a  child  in  the  theatre  at  Oxford,  can 
hardly  count  as  the  beginning  of  an  acquaintance),  for  the 
relation  started  in  the  dream  world,  there  is  an  analogue  in 
Nodier's  Neuvaine  de  la  Chanel elcur.*  The  title  means,  it  will 
be  remembered,  the  nine  days'  fasting  and  prayer  before 
Candlemas.  As  a  result  of  proper  austerity,  youth  or  maiden 
may  hope  to  see  future  wife  or  husband.  Maxim,  Nodier's  hero, 
dreams  of  a  girl  in  a  peasant  dress  which  he  recognizes  as  that 
of  a  certain  district  of  France.  Through  a  friend  he  identifies 
his  destined  bride ;  then  he  learns  that  his  parents  have  already 
arranged  a  marriage  for  him,  in  the  old-fashioned  French  way. 
He  falls  sick,  and  only  after  his  recovery,  learns  that  it  is  to 
the  lady  of  the  vision  herself  that  he  has  been  affianced.  They 
meet  but  once,  when  it  appears  that  she,  too,  has  seen  him  in  her 
dreams,  and  then,  according  to  the  habit  of  Nodier's  heroines, 
she  dies. 

If  The  Brushwood  Boy  attempts  too  many  things  for  a  short- 
story,  the  Neuvaine  attempts  not  only  too  many,  but  unsuitable 
things.  Nodier's  story  is  essentially  shorter;  there  is  but  the 
one  dream  meeting,  and  there  is  but  one  brief  meeting  in  the 
real  world.      Yet  the  Neuvaine  is  half  again  as  lone-  as  The 


*  Another  analogue  is  The  Dream  of  Maxen  Wledig  in  the  Mabinogion. 


L90  KIPL1  VG    I  Hi    sim;)    n  Ell  I  l: 

Brushwood  Boy,  owing  its  Length  not  to  overplus  of  narrative, 
hut  tu  exposition.  For  Nodier  begins  with  an  essay  which 
satirizes  lit'''  in  the  city,  where,  he  says  ironically,  one  has  all 
imaginable  amusements-  -the  opera,  the  bourse,  associations  of 
men  of  letters,  homeopathy,  phrenology,  and  representative 
government.  The  essay  contrasts  Life  in  the  country  and  the 
conditions  which,  in  provincial  society,  make  for  the  frank  and 
innocent  friendship  of  hoys  and  girls.  Nodier  then  introduces 
a  group  of  young  people  who  discuss  the  superstition  of  the 
chandeleur,  thus  Leading  the  way  to  the  beginning  of  the  story; 
by  way  of  preparation  for  Cecile's  death,  Maxim  has  to  listen 
to  a  sermon  on  blasted  hopes,  and  by  way  of  consolation,  to  hear 
another  on  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  Thus,  unlike  Kipling's, 
Nodier's  purpose  is  only  partly  narrative;  it  is  mainly  didactic. 
As  a  result,  the  narrative  suffers.  There  is,  indeed,  an  admir- 
ahle  approach  to  the  climax,  the  meeting  of  the  lovers,  with  all 
proper  preparation  and  delay.  But  the  climax  itself  has  none 
of  the  dramatic  quality  of  Kipling's,  hecause  one  is  not  inter- 
ested in  Maxim,  a  mere  childish  weakling  and  sentimentalist,  or 
in  Cecile,  who  has  no  positive  qualities  at  all.  The  contrast 
makes  very  char  Kipling's  wisdom  in  the  characterization  of 
his  hero.  Or,  perhaps  one  should  say,  the  peculiar  effectiveness 
of  Kipling's  realistic  method  for  a  story  of  this  sort,  a  method 
which  plants  the  hero,  a  real  man,  with  both  feet  resting  firmly 
upon  solid  earth,  which  endows  him  with  capacity  for  activity 
of  every  sort,  an  activity  that  asserts  itself  even  in  the  dream 
world.  I  have  said  that  Georgie's  dreams  grow  monotonous; 
but  it  is  clear  that  Kipling  has  come  nearer  escaping  inevitable 
failure  here  than  any  of  his  predecessors.  Nodier,  with  his 
single  vision,  fails  to  make  a  sufficiently  deep  impression  ;  George 


CHARACTERS  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  191 

du  Maurier  makes  the  dream  life  a  commonplace,  middle-aged, 
and  domesticated  affair,  lacking  movement  and  progression.  On 
the  whole,  then,  Kipling's  technique  can  well  stand  the  test  of 
comparison.  If  The  Brushwood  Boy  is  not  typical  short-story, 
it  approaches  it  far  more  closely  than  Le  Neuvame  de  la  Ckan- 
deleur.  It  is  more  highly  unified,  more  vigorous,  more  dramatic ; 
it  makes  much  more  both  of  the  realities  and  of  the  dreams,  and 
as  a  story  of  pure  romantic  love,  more  than  holds  its  own. 


<  HAPTEB  VIM 

PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE 

Eere  again  the  old  methods  persist,  unchanged,  or  modified, 
or  augmented  by  new  ones.  The  quality  of  personal  intensity 
remains  a  general  characteristic  of  the  narrative.  Although 
Kipling  has  given  up  the  habit  of  appearing  in  person,  unex- 
pectedly, at  the  end  of  the  story,  one  feels  nevertheless  liis 
presence  beside  the  actors.  Or  if  this  is  impossible  one  is  sure 
at  least  that  lie  is  telling  the  tale,  as  in  the  Just  So  Stories;  or 
he  appeal's  disguised  sometimes  as  Puck,  sometimes  as  Dan,  in 
Puck  of  Pook's  Hill  and  Ei  wards  and  Fairies.  Half  the  remain- 
ing stories  are  told  in  the  first  person;  Kipling,  that  is.  appears 
as  interested  and  sympathetic  listener,  or  takes  a  more  or  less 
active  part  in  the  events  of  the  story  itself.  It  is,  as  before, 
Kipling  himself — or  Kipling's  idea  of  Kipling — not  a  dramatic 
personality  created  for  the  occasion.  He  is  now  a  trifle  less 
eager,  however,  to  paint  a  flattering  self-portrait.  There  is 
even  a  certain  humility  in  his  account  of  an  early  literary  ven- 
ture in  Bn  ad  upon  tin  Wat/  rs.  McPhee,  his  friend  the  engineer, 
approved,  be  says,  "of  my  writings  to  the  extent  of  one  pamph- 
let of  twenty-four  pages  that  1  wrote  for  Hoi  dock,  Steiner  and 
Chase,  owners  of  the  line. . . .  Holdock  invited  me  to  bis  bouse. 
and  gave  me  dinner  with  the  governess  when  the  others  had 
finished,  and  placed  the  plans  and  specifications  in  my  hand, 
and    I   wrote  the  pamphlet   that  same  afternoon.     It  was  called 


PLOTS  AND  THE  IB  SIGNIFICANCE  193 

'Comfort  in  the  Cabin,'  and  brought  me  seven  pound  ten,  cash 
down — an  important  sum  of  money  in  those  days ;  and  the  gov- 
erness, who  was  teaching  Master  John  Holdock  his  scales,  told 
me  that  Mrs.  Holdock  had  told  her  to  keep  ah  eye  on  me,  in 
case  I  went  away  with  coats  from  the  hat-rack."  Kipling 
appears  again  as  author  in  An  Error  in  the  Fourth,  Dimension : 
"observation,  after  all,  is  my  trade,"  he  says.  And  in  The 
House  Surgeon  there  is  an  interesting  glimpse  of  his  literary 
methods.  Engaged  in  a  piece  of  amateur  detective  work  it 
becomes  necessary  for  him  to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  a 
certain  Mr.  Baxter :  "It  appeared  that  he  golfed.  Therefore, 
I  was  an  enthusiastic  beginner,  anxious  to  learn.  Twice  I 
invaded  his  office  with  a  bag  full  of  the  spelicans  needed  in  this 
detestable  game,  and  a  vocabulary  to  match."  A  bit  of  auto- 
biography, one  imagines.  For  Kipling  "got  up"  many  voca- 
bularies in  his  time.  In  this  same  story,  too,  is  an  interesting  bit 
of  self-description :  "I  am  less  calculated  to  make  a  Sherlock 
Holmes  than  any  man  I  know,  for  I  lack  both  method  and 
patience,  yet  the  idea  of  following  up  the  trouble  to  its  source 
fascinated  me."  There  is  another  glimpse  of  the  author  in  Their 
Lawful  Occasions.  He  "told  me,"  says  Pyecroft  of  Kipling, 
"he  was  official  correspondent  for  the  Times;  and  I  know  he's 
littery  by  the  way  'e  tries  to  talk  Navy-talk."  Again  the 
vocabulary !  In  all  these,  and  in  other  stories  where  Kipling 
is  present,  whether  as  passive  auditor,  as  interviewer,  or  play- 
ing a  minor  part,  he  has  all  his  old  sympathy  with  the  action : 
our  interest  in  the  narrative  is  due  in  part  to  the  contagion  of 
his  interest  in  what  is  going  on. 

This    characteristic    quality    of    Kipling's   work    reaches   its 
culmination  in  the  greatest  story  of  the  period,  the  best  indeed 


L94  KIPL1  VG   THE   8T0BY   WBITEE 

of  all  Kipling's  short-stories,  in  "They."  The  short-story  is 
sometimes  compared  to  the  lyric;  the  comparison  in  1  his  case  is 
eminently  fitting;  for  "They"  is  intimately  and  sacredly  per- 
sonal, a  cry  from  the  heart,  ool  of  Kipling  the  author  or 
journalist  or  special  correspondent,  bul  of  Kipling  the  man.  It 
is  nut  a  self-portrait,  yet  a  piece  of  sincere  self-expression; 
not  self-conscious,  yet  subjective.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view 
that  it  must  be  studied.  To  understand  it,  one  must  remember 
that  in  1899,  four  or  five  years  before  it  was  published,  Kipling, 
during  his  own  severe  illness,  lost  by  death  his  eldest  daughter 
tlen  in  her  sixth  year.  And  one  must  read  the  v«rses  at  the 
beginning : 

The  Beturx  op  the  Children- 

Neither  the  harps  nor  the  crowns  amused,  nor  the  cherubs'  dove-winged 

races — 
Holding  hands  forlornly  the  Children  wandered  beneath  the  Dome; 
Plucking  the  radiant  robes  of  the  passers  by,  and  with  pitiful  faces 
Begging  what   Princes  and  Powers  refused: — 'Ah,  please  will  you  let 

us  go  home?' 

Over  the  jewelled  floor,  nigh  weeping,  ran  to  them  Mary  the  Mother, 
Kneeled  and  caressed  and  made  promise  with  kisses,  and  drew  them 

along  to  the  gateway — 
Yea  the  all-iron  unbribable  Door  which  Peter  must  guard  and  none 

other. 
Straightway   She   took   the   keys   from   his   keeping,   and   opened   and 

freed  them  straightway. 


So  through  the  Void  the  Children  ran  homeward  merrily  hand  in  hand, 
Looking   neither   to   left   nor   right  when   the   breathless   Heavens   stood 

still; 
And   the  Guards  of  the   Void  resheathed   their   swords,   for  they  heard 

the  Command: 
'Shall  I   that   have   suffered   the   children   to   come   to   me   hold    them 

against  their  will  ? ' 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  195 

By  virtue,  then,  of  this  Miracle  of  Our  Lady  the  children 
have  turned  again  home.  Yet  we  do  not  see  or  hear  them;  we 
do  not  know  what  their  state  is  or  where  they  are;  only  a  few 
fortunate  beings  have  this  knowledge  and  with  them  the  story 
is  concerned. 

This  story,  as  I  have  said,  is  in  my  opinion  Kipling's  best;  it 
is  even  one  of  the  best  in  the  English  language.  It  fulfils  all 
the  requirements  of  short-story  technique,  and,  more  than  this, 
it  has  real  human  interest  and  significance.  It  marks  the  cul- 
mination of  many  lines  of  Kipling's  work.  In  it  intensity  of 
emotion  fuses  imagination  with  sense  of  fact  and  of  form,  so  that 
every  element  of  the  narrative  is  exquisitely  elaborated,  not 
for  its  own  sake  but  with  reference  to  its  function  in  the  story 
as  a  whole. 

"We  delight,  as  never  before,  in  the  pure  beauty  of  English 
landscape,  in  its  exquisite  finish,  in  the  lovely  old  age  of  that 
house  of  lichened  and  weather-worn  stone  with  its  mullioned 
windows  and  roofs  of  rose-red  tile.  It  is  inaccessible,  mysterious, 
hidden  deep  in  the  forest,  where  you  find  it  by  chance,  or  rather 
because  of  some  supernatural  leading  or  guidance,  like  the 
palaces  of  fairy  tale  and  lai.  When  you  leave  it,  it  disappears 
mysteriously  behind  the  interlacing  of  the  crumpled  hills,  just 
as  the  ravine  leading  to  the  scene  of  the  ghostly  bowling  party 
disappears  in  Rip  Van  Winkle.  The  approach  to  the  scene  of 
the  story  has  indeed  the  more  careful  and  the  steadier  move- 
ment of  an  Irving  or  a  Poe :  ' '  During  the  whole  of  a  dull,  dark, 
and  soundless  day  in  the  autumn  of  the  year,  when  the  clouds 
hung  oppressively  low  in  the  heavens,  I  had  been  passing  alone, 
on  horseback,  through  a  singularly  dreary  tract  of  country; 
and  at  length  found  myself,  as  the  shades  of  evening  drew  on, 


lit.;  Kin  ING    I  III    ST0B1    R  HI  I  ll: 

within  view  of  the  melancholy  Souse  of  Usher."  It  is  because 
intense  and  persistenl  emotion  stimulates  qoI  merely  imagination 

inn  s.'Msr  nf  form  as  well,  thai  Kipling  comes  back  here  i<>  a 
manner  which  maj  seem  artificial,  but  which  is.  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  as  inevitable  ami  righl  ami  sincere  as  the  perfection  of  a 
Bonnet. 

Aa  tin-  melancholy  of  autumn  is  the  fitting  prelude  to  Poe'a 
Btory,  even  so  tin-  joyful  promise  of  spring  and  the  rich  fulfill- 
menl  of  summer  properly  accompany  the  pure  charm  of  the 
firs]  visit  ami  the  deepening  mystery  of  the  second,  to  the  House 
Beautiful  in  the  Forest.  More  subtle  still  in  its  sympathy,  sym- 
bolic  evu  of  the  dear  understanding  at  last,  the  fleeting  joy  of 
meeting,  followed  by  the  poignant  grief  of  a  parting  that  was  like 
that  of  the  spirit  from  the  flesh,  is  the  change  from  the  brilliant 
wind-swept  hills,  from  the  blue  to  the  dingy  pewter  of  the  sea, 
and  the  heavy  inland  fog  with  the  smell  of  autumn  in  the  air, 
which  shadows  forth  the  third  and  final  visit.  The  time  that 
elapses  between  these  visils.  the  month  or  so  between  the  first 
and  second,  the  "two  months  and  four  days"  between  second  and 
third,  does  nol  concern  the  story  at  all  and  is  appropriately  left 
unfilled:  we  are  not  bidden  to  follow  and  admire  the  intervening 
activities  of  Kipling  as  we  follow  those  of  Georgie  Cottar  in 
Tin   Brushwood  Boy. 

Xor  are  we  concerned  with  the  outside  world  of  men.  We 
know  that  it  is  there,  as  it  is  right  that  wo  should  :  it  is  the 
starting  point  for  the  journey  into  the  world  of  dreams;  and  the 
headlong  Might  of  the  motor  car  in  the  search  for  the  nurse  gives 
us  agreeable  assurance  that  it  still  exists.  But  it  is  the  real 
world  that  is  shadowy,  except  just  those  members  of  it,  who. 
mainly  for  contrast,  come  somewhat  into  the  story — the  doctor, 


PLOTS  AND  THEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  197 

the  trembling  nun,  Turpin  the  tenant-farmer,  the  poor  cottagers, 
and  Jenny,  who  is  to  show  us  that  even  for  her  child  there  is  a 
place  beside  the  lawful  born  who  come  back  to  the  House  in  the 
Forest. 

And  'They,'  shadows  within  the  shadow  as  they  are,  they 
are  not  mere  shades ;  they  are  children ;  their  very  elusiveness  is 
in  part  childish  shyness.  One  heard  a  laugh  among  the  yew- 
peacocks,  the  utterly  happy  chuckle  of  a  child  absorbed  in  some 
light  mischief,  voices  that  might  be  the  doves,  the  tread  of  small 
cautious  feet  stealing  across  dead  leaves;  a  child  that  seemed 
to  cling  to  her  skirt  swerved  into  the  leafage  as  she  drew  nearer ; 
as  one  entered  a  room  one  felt  that  the  children  had  only  just 
hurried  away,  one  saw  their  low  chairs  and  tables,  their  toy  guns 
and  dolls  flung  hastily  upon  the  floor.  They  inspired  fear  only 
to  such  as  Turpin,  the  grossly  material,  who  having  no  children 
could  not  understand.  To  the  childless  blind  woman,  who  could 
hear  and  touch  them,  they  came — she  knew  not  how  many — they 
came  because  she  loved  them  so,  because  she  needed  them,  made 
them  come.  For  her  as  well  as  for  the  children  Our  Lady  had 
wrought  her  miracle.  With  the  infinite  pathos  of  expectation,  she 
had  toys  ready  for  them,  the  garden  door  always  open,  the  fire 
always  burning,  "in  case  anyone  comes  in  with  cold  toes,  you 
see";  and  no  impassable  iron  on  or  near  the  broad  brick  hearth. 
They  came  to  her  perhaps  because  she  could  not  see  them:  for 
only  those  who  had  borne  or  lost  might  "walk  in  the  wood"  as 
the  phrase  ran — Jenny,  Madden  the  butler  and  his  wife,  Kipling 
himself.  He  did  not  at  first  understand  that  it  was  for  him  that 
the  little  thing  in  the  window  waved  a  friendly  hand,  that  the 
little  maid  looked  tremendously  interested ;  he  did  not  under- 
stand that  his  being  there  was  a  matter  not  of  favor  but  of 


L98  KIPLING   I  III    8T0EI    w  I.I  I  I  5 

right;  nor  why,  in  the  failing  Light,  n  door  creaked  cautiously, 
and  he  heard  the  patter  of  feet— quick  feel  through  ;i  room 
beyond;  nor  <»t'  whom  Mrs.  Madden  Bpoke  when  she  s;ii<l.  'No, 
/  haven'1  Been  her  either  iliis  evening.'  He  understood  only 
when  "the  little  brushing  kiss  fell  in  the  centre  of  my  palm — 
as  ;i  gifl  on  which  the  fingers  were,  once,  expected  to  close... 
;i  fragmi  nt  of  the  mute  code  devised  very  Long  ago." 

••  They"  is  the  crown  and  flower  of  ;ill  the  long  Line  of  stories 
thai  deal  with  children,  show  the  world  from  their  point  of 
view,  with  all  its  distortion  and  joy  and  pathos.  Muhammad 
Din,  Baa  Baa,  Black  Sheep,  Wet  Willi*  Winkie,  His  Majesty 
tht  King,  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  all  were  preparation  for 
the  writing  of  "They."  It  is,  furthermore,  the  moefl  subtle  of  all 
Kipling's  dealings  with  the  supernatural.  One  can  say  only 
thai  "They"  are  happy;  for  the  rest  they  are  shadows  within 
the  shadow,  creatures  of  the  fancy  or  of  dreams,  and  yel  real 
children,  happy,  playful,  mischievous;  they  hover  elusively 
between  reality  and  unreality.  They  are  very  differenl  from  the 
Mrs.  Dumoise  who.  in  By  Word  of  Month,  came  hack  to  warn 
her  husband  of*  his  death,  and  from  Mrs.  Keith-Wessington,  the 
Loquacious  ghosl  of  Tht  Pha/ntom  'Rickshaw.  They  are  not 
ghosts;  aor  are  they  the  creatures  of  a  dream,  Like  the  ■"They"' 
and  the  "It"  of  Tht  Brushwood  Boy. 

They  are  not,  of  course,  individual  characters;  for  thai  they 
are  too  shadowy  and  too  subtly  drawn.  The  living  persons  of 
the  story,  however,  are  Sufficiently  individualized  in  the  group 
who  stand  between  "Them"  and  the  real  world — Turpin,  Jenny 
and  her  mother,  the  butler  and  his  wife,  and  above  all,  of  course, 
the  blind  woman  herself.  She  is  best  characterized  through  the 
house.     For,  as  Kipling  says.  ".Men  and  women  may  sometimes. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  199 

after  great  effort,  achieve  a  creditable  lie ;  but  the  bouse,  which 
is  their  temple,  cannot  say  anything  save  the  truth  of  those  who 
have  lived  in  it."  This  one  was  "a  place  of  good  influence  and 
great  peace,"  expressing  mainly  in  its  preparedness  for  chil- 
dren her  yearning  and  her  wistfulness.  But  she  has  other  quali- 
ties than  these ;  for  eyes  of  the  body  she  has  eyes  of  the  mind, 
she  can  see  the  naked  soul.  She  is  conscious  of  the  egg  or  ' '  aura, ' ' 
the  subtle  essence  of  the  individual  supposed  to  emanate  from 
all  the  living  things.  She  follows  Kipling's  every  mood  and 
thought ;  and  she  pierces  the  flimsy  scheming  of  Turpin,  reveal- 
ing a  masculine  executive  power,  like  that  of  William  the  Con- 
queror. Clearly  she  is  of  the  family  of  Kipling's  women.  But 
she  is  utterly  good ;  and  combines  with  her  vigor  more  of  the 
purely  feminine  charm  than  any  of  his  other  heroines. 

{They"  is  not  in  any  sense  a  psychological  study,  yet  the 
moods  and  motives  of  its  characters,  in  relation  always  to  the 
children,  are  not  forgotten — the  violent  grief  of  Jenny  and  her 
mother,  contrasted  with  the  servant's  mask  and  discreet  sadness 
of  Madden ;  both,  with  the  mad  terror  of  Turpin.  The  impulse 
which  brought  Kipling  to  the  house  was  something  other  than  his 
own  volition,  some  external  calling.  At  first,  one  view  drew  him 
to  another,  one  hilltop  to  its  fellow;  later,  his  car,  it  may  have 
been,  took  the  road  of  her  own  volition;  on  the  third  visit  the 
blind  woman  greets  him  with,  "What  a  long  time  before  you  had 
to  come  here  again. '  It  is  in  keeping  with  the  fundamental  con- 
ception of  the  story  that  Kipling  should  feel  from  the  first  no 
terror  in  the  presence  of  the  children,  only  delight  in  their  elu- 
sive charm,  regret  at  their  shyness ;  later,  the  sense  of  mystery ; 
last  of  all,  grief,  as  at  a  final  parting.  As  for  the  blind  woman, 
it  is,  in  a  sense,  her  yearning,  her  wistfulness,  that  motives  the 


200  KIPLING  THE  8TOBY   WBITEB 

story;  the  children,  as  she  says,  come  because  of*  her  greal  Love 
and  need.  Perhaps  we  are  to  understand  that  it  is  in  part  that 
peculiar  sensitiveness  granted  in  compensation  to  the  blind,  that 
permits  her  who  has  neither  borne  nor  lost,  to  bear  them,  to 
feel  their  presence  and  their  moods. 

The  concentration  of  attention  upon  the  short  time  of  the 
three  brief  visits,  upon  tbe  circumscribed  space,  and  upon  the 
small  social  group,  involves,  almost  inevitably,  a  like  concen- 
tration of  plot.  It  does  as  a  matter  of  fact,  tell  only  one  story, 
follow  only  one  line  of  action,  not  attempting,  as  Without  B<  nefit 
of  Cl< >'</y  and  The  Brushwood  Boy  attempt,  to  trace  a  series  of 
events  in  the  real  world  running  parallel  to  the  stories  in  the 
world  of  dreams.  The  plot,  moreover,  is  admirably  constructed 
and  proportioned — perhaps  as  I  have  suggested,  because  of  that 
intensity  of  emotion  which  expresses  itself  in  sense  of  form.  The 
three  parts  are  clearly  defined;  the  first  two  are  about  equal  in 
length,  the  third,  as  it  should  be,  a  little  longer.  All  the  incidents 
are  gathered  up  in  these  parts  to  perform  their  appointed  func- 
tions; no  bits  of  action  or  dialogue  float  loose  or  unattached,  as  in 
the  earlier  stories.  The  translation  of  the  whole  into  concrete 
narrative  terms  is  admirably  complete  :  the  story  is  unencumbered 
and  unmarred  by  comment  or  explanation.  It  comes  thus  to  owe 
pari  of  its  charm  to  its  demands  upon  the  mental  activities  of 
the  reader:  it  offers  a  series  of  concrete  suggestions  which  the 
reader  is  obliged  to  work  out  for  himself:  if  he  does  not  wholly 
succeed,  if  part  remains  mystery  still,  that  very  mystery  is.  I 
think,  a  phase  of  the  impression  which  the  story  is  intended  to 
produce.  It  stimulates  to  many  readings.  "Tiny"  thus  marks 
the  culmination  of  the  "suggested"  short-stories.  It  is  mani- 
festly only  by  the  subtle  use  of  such  a  method   as  this  that   it 


PLOTS  AND  THEIB  SIGNIFICANCE  201 

is  possible  to  produce  the  desired  effect  of  hovering  between 
reality  and  unreality.  Yet  "hovering"  is  perhaps  not  the  word, 
not,  certainly,  if  it  seems  to  suggest  anything  like  vacillation. 
For  the  treatment  of  the  theme  is  firm,  though  subtle ;  the  ap- 
proach is  admirably  graded.  There  is,  at  first,  no  mystery,  only 
charm.  Then,  bit  by  bit,  things  that  puzzle  the  reader ;  then 
matters  more  and  more  significant  that  Kipling  does  not  under- 
stand— the  reader  meantime,  spontaneously  constructing  explan- 
ations of  his  own.  At  last  with  the  final  revelation,  the  situation 
in  its  broader  outlines  at  least,  is  made  clear ;  the  significance  of 
the  details  is,  at  the  same  time,  revealed;  they  fall  into  place. 
Then  with  Kipling,  the  reader  knows,  and  it  is  as  if  he  had  known 
from  the  first,  when  the  child  at  the  high  window  across  the 
lawn  seemed  to  wave  a  friendly  hand. 

For  moral,  finally,  for  criticism  of  life,  there  is  the  whole 
conception  that  underlies  the  story.  Perhaps  it  might  be  for- 
mulated in  some  such  way  as  this :  Those  who  have  lost  may  take 
comfort  in  the  thought  that  there  is  for  children  a  special  place 
prepared,  a  place  more  fitting  for  them  than  that  of  the  harps 
and  crowns  and  the  cherubs'  dove-winged  races,  a  place  where 
there  are  no  tears,  but  only  warmth,  laughter,  light  mischief, 
and  utter  childish  happiness.  The  story  may  thus  be  regarded 
as  a  final  protest  against  that  cold  and  conventional  heaven,  con- 
ceived by  the  grimly  religious,  and  very  forbidding  to  children; 
the  heaven  where  the  Aunty  Rosas  go.  Yet,  in  contrast  with 
Baa  Baa,  Black  Sheep,  there  is  no  bitterness,  no  satire,  in  the 
protest ;  it  is  altogether  tender,  sweet,  and  true. 

The  subtle  treatment  of  the  figures  of  the  children,  which  is 
the  great  achievement  of  this  story,  has  not  often  been  paralleled 
in  English.    There  is  something  like  it  in  Hawthorne's  The  Snow 


202  KIPLING  TEE  STOBI   WBITEB 

Image.  But  the  great  example  is  the  mysterious  old  man  in 
Chaucer's  Pardoner's  Tale.  Like  Kipling,  Chaucer  does  not 
commit  himself;  his  old  man  lias  been  interpreted  as  the  evil 
genius  of  the  revelers,  as  the  Wandering  Jew,  as  Death  itself. 
He  is  indeed  something  of  all  these,  and  more,  and  has  the  effect 
of  all.  He  appears  more  briefly,  yet  with  more  force  and  vivid- 
ness, than  Kipling's  children;  he  is  more  impressive  though  he 
lacks  their  charm.  But  in  both  cases  the  method  is  the  same : 
we  are  given  the  glimpse  and  left  to  draw  our  own  conclusions. 
More  suggestive,  however,  than  the  comparison  of  "They" 
with  the  Pardoner's  Tale,  is  the  comparison  with  The  Prioresses 
Tali.  Both  are  at  bottom  stories  of  Our  Lady,  of  miracles 
wrought  through  her  mother-love;  in  both,  children  return  from 
the  dead:  both  are  distinguished  from  oilier  works  of  their 
authors  by  a  peculiar  tenderness  and  delicacy  of  treatment,  by 
the  pathos  involved  in  the  death  of  a  little  child.  These  resem- 
blances, however,  serve  but  to  sharpen  the  contrasts,  the  char- 
acteristic contrasts  between  the  medieval  and  the  modern.  "Where 
Kipling  is  subjective,  personal — lyrical,  in  a  word — Chaucer  is 
impersonal  and  dramatic.  It  is  not  he  but  the  Prioress  who  tells 
the  tale.  It  is  inspired  by  /"  r  religious  feeling,  by  her  desire  that 
others  shall  share  her  complete  belief.  It  is  all  clear,  straight- 
forward :  no  melting  outlines  here;  we  know  exactly  what  hap- 
pened. The  Prioress  seeks  to  make  her  tale  credible  by  em- 
phasizing all  its  elements,  making  them  as  realistic  as  possible, 
and  weaving  them  as  completely  and  as  carefully  as  she  can 
into  a  web  of  effects  and  causes  Kipling  on  the  other  hand, 
does  not  expect  his  readers  to  believe,  literally,  in  such  a  thing 
as  the  return  of  the  children  to  this  heaven  upon  earth.  In 
order  not  to  repel  us  by  a  notion  so  manifestly  incredible,  he 


PLOTS  AND  THEM  SIGNIFICANCE  203 

avoids  stating  it  in  any  terms  so  crude  as  those  I  have  just 
used ;  he  shrouds  it  in  mystery,  dims  and  softens  the  outlines, 
makes  subtle  suggestions  instead  of  precise  statements.  So  that, 
while  both  are  miracles  and  both  aim  at  emotional  effects,  the 
Prioress  tries  to  reach  the  emotions  partly  by  way  of  the  intel- 
lect :  Kipling,  directly ;  with  him  it  does  not  matter  whether  our 
minds  are  convinced  or  not.  Though,  of  course,  imaginatively, 
emotionally,  Kipling  believes  just  as  absolutely  in  his  own  story 
as  the  Prioress  believes  in  hers.  Otherwise  it  would  not  affect 
us ;  it  would  leave  us  cold. 

"Tli.cy."  significant  in  many  ways,  is  then  mainly  so  as  the 
culmination  of  lyrical,  subjective,  personal  narrative  in  Kipling's 
work. 

This  same  personal  note  is  struck  in  certain  other  stories,  in 
certain  of  the  new  types  or  forms  which  are  characteristic  of 
this  third  period.  It  is  present  in  the  Just  So  Stories,  which, 
though  they  recount  no  intimate  personal  experience,  yet  betray 
throughout  the  presence  of  the  writer  and  of  the  audience  of 
little  children,  for  whom,  as  the  subtitle  informs  us,  they  were 
written.  They  reproduce  very  skilfully  the  manner  of  the  oral 
tale,  that  is  always  conscious  of  the  listening  children ;  and  the 
reader  feels  continually  in  the  background  bits  of  childish  ad- 
ventures, or  hears  echoes  of  the  edifying  conversations  of  real 
parents  and  real  children.  They  have,  once  more,  a  special 
vocabulary  or  dialect  which  Kipling  had  learned  perhaps  more 
naturally  and  spontaneously  than  that  of  Tommy  Atkins  or 
Mrs.  Hauksbee,  or  than  the  technical  talk  of  engine  room  or 
locomotive  cab.  It  is  the  dialect  of  children,  though  there  are, 
indeed,  some  long  words  in  it ;  and  one  wonders  whether  he  was 
always  intelligible  to  his  auditors.     The  Just  So  Stories  have, 


204  KIPLING  THE  STOliY    WHITER 

too,  that  special  trick  oi*  effective  oral  narrative,  the  repeated 
phrase  or  refrain.  Tims  the  Cat  identifies  himself  always  by  the 
rhythmic  sentence:  "I  am  the  Cat  who  walks  by  himself,  and 
all  places  are  alike  to  me."  And  the  symmetrical  incidents  of 
the  story  are  marked  by  parallel  phrasing:  Wild  Dog,  Horse, 
and  Cow  become  friends  and  servants  of  Wild  Man  in  the  same 
formulae.  The  Cat  wins  a  place  by  the  fire  by  tricking  the 
Wife  into  three  words  of  praise;  and  has  then  to  make  friends 
with  Man  and  Dog — always  in  the  same  formulae.  Kipling  thus 
seizes  and  holds  the  technique  and  the  style  of  the  old  march'  n  : 
the  Just  So  Stories  read  like  a  kind  of  parody  of  Grimm.  Or 
rather,  like  the  parody  of  a  special  sort  of  folk  tale,  of  the  ' '  Pour- 
quoi,"  the  How  or  Why  story,  of  which  How  Fear  Came  (in 
the  Second  Jungle  Booh'  I,  with  its  account  of  how  the  tiger  got 
his  stripes,  is  an  earlier  example.  Thus  from  this  volume,  one 
may  learn  how  the  whale  got  his  throat,  the  camel  his  hump, 
the  rhinoceros  his  skin,  the  leopard  his  spots ;  how  the  first  letter 
was  written,  the  alphabet  made,  and  so  on.  These  accounts,  of 
course,  are  jocular  rather  than  seriously  instructive — though  it 
may  be  that  the  alphabet  began  in  much  this  way.  And  they  do 
not  spring  from  a  serious  moral  purpose,  though  there  is  much 
incidental  moralizing  of  a  light  and  tender,  yet  practical  sort. 

The  Just  So  Stories,  then,  are  interesting  historically  be- 
cause, like  the  stories  of  the  Jungle  Books,  they  demonstrate  Kip- 
ling's ability  to  strike  and  hold  a  certain  note  of  style  ami  man- 
ner, and  because  they,  too,  carry  on  the  ancient  tradition  of  the 
folk  tale,  the  tale  told  for  children  by  word  of  mouth.  They 
are  interesting,  furthermore,  because  of  their  forward-looking 
connection  with  the  stories  for  older  children  in  Puck  of  Pook's 
Jlill  and  Rewards  mid  Fairies.     For  in  the  Just  So  Stories  of 


PLOTS  AND  THEIB  SIGNIFICANCE  205 

primitive  man  there  is  the  same  insistence  on  the  "historicity" 
of  the  English  landscape ;  it  is  summed  up  in  the  verses  at  the 
end  of  The  First  Letter: 

There  runs  a  road  by  Merrow  Down — 

A  grassy  track  to-day  it  is — 
An  hour  out  of  Guildford  town, 

Above  the  river  Wey  it  is. 

Here,  when  they  heard  the  horse-bells  ring, 
The  ancient  Britons  dressed  and  rode 

To  watch  the  dark  Phoenicians  bring 
Their  goods  along  the  Western  Eoad. 


But  long  and  long  before  that  time 
(When  bison  used  to  roam  on  it) 

Did  Taffy  and  her  Daddy  climb 

That  down,  and  had  their  home  on  it. 

Then  beavers  built  in  Broadstonebrook 
And  made  a  swamp  where  Bramley  stands; 

And  bears  from  Shere  would  come  and  look 
For  Taffimai  where  Shamley  stands.1 


i  Other  verses  about  Taffy  and  her  father  seem  to  strike  the  personal 
note,  perhaps  anticipating  "They": 

But  as  the  faithful  years  return 

And  hearts   unwounded   sing   again, 
Comes  Taffy  dancing  through  the  fern 

To  lead  the  Surrey  spring  again. 

Her  brows  are  bound  with  braken-fronds, 

And  golden  elf-locks  fly  above; 
Her  eyes  are  bright  as  diamonds 

And  bluer  than  the  skies  above. 

In  moccasins  and  deer-skin  cloak, 

Unfearing,  free  and  fair  she  flits, 
And  lights  her  little  damp-wood  smoke 

To  show  her  Daddy  where  she  flits. 

For  far — oh,  very  far  behind, 

So  far  she  cannot  call  to  him, 
Comes  Tegumai  alone  to  find 

The  daughter  that  was  all  to  him. 


206  KIPLING  THE  8TOB1    WBITEB 

This  brings  us  once  more  to  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill  and  R<  wards 
and  Fairies,  the  mosl  importanl  achievement  of  the  period  in 
the  way  of  external  structure,  and  the  mosl  admirable  dandling 

of  i'rai I  tales  since  Chaucer.    Willi  both  Chaucer  and  Kipling 

the  special  excellence  Lies  in  the  close  connection  of  the  talcs  with 
the  framework.  With  Chaucer  the  talcs  spring  from  the  char- 
acters of  the  narrators  and  from  the  situation  in  which  they  find 
themselves  in  relation  to  the  other  Canterbury  Pilgrims.  With 
Kipling  the  persons  who  conic  up  out  of  the  past  tell  tales  con- 
cerning their  invii  adventures,  sometimes  continued  from  story 
to  story,  and  often  connected  in  some  way  with  the  activities  of 
the  present  day.  The  hauling  of  a  tree  from  the  forest  connects 
itself  with  ancient  ship  building  and  anecdotes  of  Sir  Francis 
Drake:  Dan's  study  of  Latin  is  galvanized  into  a  semhlance  of 
life  by  the  appearance  of  Parnesius,  the  young  Roman  soldier: 
the  children  rechristeu  their  boat  the  Long  Serpent,  set  mil  in 
her  to  explore  the  hrook  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  and  are 
reading  Longfellow's  Discoverer  of  fix  North  ('<i/><,  when  sir 
Richard  Dalyngridge  appears  and  tells  them  of  his  eleventh- 
century  voyage  of  discovery  southward  along  the  coast  of 
Africa.  Unlike  Chaucer's  framework,  Kipling's,  characteristic- 
ally, has  little  progressive  quality,  Little  of  the  element  of  plot. 
It  is  not,  itself,  a  story.  Ami  Kipling,  again  characteristically. 
does  not  reveal  Chaucer's  interest  in  character:  for  Dan  ami 
Una,  EEobden,  ami  even  Puck,  lack  the  vitality  or  reality  of 
Knight  or  Miller,  Prioress  or  Wife  of  Path.  The  narrators,  of 
course,  stand  out  clearly  enough  in  their  autobiographical  tales: 
hut  they  are  nol  parts  of  the  framework.  Kipling  on  the  other 
hand  lays  far  greater  emphasis  ihaii  Chaucer  on  the  settings. 
For,  as  we  have  seen.  Kipling's  \>-vy  purpose  is  to  emphasize  the 
historicity    of    English     places,    to    revive    the    past    within    the 


PLOTS  AND  THEIE  SIGNIFICANCE  207 

present,  to  reveal  the  beauty  of  the  English  landscape.  Dan 
and  Una  acted  the  fairy  part  of  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 
three  times  running,  on  midsummer  eve,  in  the  middle  of  a  ring, 
and  as  Puck  says,  "under — right  under  one  of  my  oldest  hills  in 
Old  England. "  As  a  result  Puck  himself  appeared.  They  went 
through  the  ceremony  of  taking  "seizin"  or  possession.  "  'Now 
are  you  two  lawfully  seized  and  possessed  of  all  Old  England,' 
began  Puck  in  a  sing-song  voice.  'By  right  of  Oak,  Ash,  and 
Thorn  are  you  free  to  come  and  go  and  look  and  know  where  I 
shall  show  or  best  you  please.  You  shall  see  What  you  shall  see 
and  you  shall  hear  What  you  shall  hear,  though  It  shall  have 
happened  three  thousand  year ;  and  you  shall  know  neither 
Doubt  nor  Fear. '  Technically  this  absence  of  Doubt  and  Fear 
is  admirable  preservation  of  the  old  tradition;  like  fairies  in 
march  t  it  and  lai  the  figures  from  the  past  appear  suddenly  and 
as  suddenly  fade,  leaving  with  Dan  and  Una  no  memory  of  their 
presence.  These  mysterious  exits  and  entrances  are  skilfully 
managed ;  the  reader,  at  least,  is  astonished  into  interest  and 
attention,  and  so  captivated.2 

Beside  these  revivals  of  folk  tales,  fairy  tales,  and  framed 
tales,  certain  other  experiments  in  older  forms  must  be  at  least 
enumerated.  Most  of  these  are  didactic  in  purpose.  A  group 
of  Fables  preach  the  doctrine  of  the  ' '  day  "s  work ' ' :  the  conver- 
sation of  the  horses  in  The  Walking  Delegate  and  The  Maltese 
Cat,  of  the  bees  in  The  Mother  Hive,  of  the  parts  of  The  Ship 
that  Found  Herself,  of  the  locomotives  in  .007,  emphasizes  the 
necessity  of  cooperation,  of  every  man  performing  his  allotted 


2  For  single  and  independent  framed  tales,  like  those  in  Soldiers  Three, 
see  Mrs.  Bathurst,  A  Deal  in  Cotton,  Bonds  of  Discipline,  and  Slaves  of  the 
Lamp  Part  II  in  Stalky  Sr  Co.,  where  as  in  Balzac's  Grande  Breteche,  or  in 
Browning's  The  Einp  and  the  Bool',  the  story  is  constructed  by  contribu- 
tions from  several  narrators. 


208  KIPLING  Till:   STORY    WRITER 

task.  It  is  simply  the  old  doctrine  of  The  System.  The  Bridge 
Builders,  which  turns  into  fable  in  the  second  part,  and  Below 
He  Mill  Dam  reveal  the  inevitable  onward  march  of  modern 
progress.  To  set  forth  an  ideal  scheme  of  national  defence  Kip- 
ling makes  use  of  the  convention  of  the  Dream,  thus  harking 
back  to  Addison  and  the  eighteenth-century  essay.  There  is 
similar  reminiscence  in  a  recurrence  of  the  Alien  Critic  Tradi- 
tion in  A  Sahib's  ]\'«r — a  criticism  by  a  native  Indian  officer  of 
the  English  conduct  of  affairs  in  South  Africa.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  those  stories  of  the  first  period  which  involve 
the  relations  of  the  two  races  imply  a  criticism  of  the  white  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  black — Lispeth,  for  example,  and  Tht 
Judgment  of  Dungara.  And  in  the  transition  period  One  View 
of  the  Question  is  a  letter  from  an  Indian  gentleman  in  London 
to  a  friend  at  home,  devoted  wholly  to  a  criticism  of  the  English 
from  the  Indian  point  of  view. 

A  still  older  tradition,  and  one  new  to  Kipling,  is  revived  in 
the  Cahte  Devot — Exemplum  of  The  Conversion  of  St.  Wilfrid. 
St.  Wilfrid,  Eddi  his  chaplain,  and  Meon  a  pagan  were  wrecked 
on  an  island,  and  as  it  seemed  were  likely  to  perish  of  starvation 
and  exposure.  Meon  would  not  renounce  "Wot an  and  curry  favor 
with  the  Christian  God  at  the  last  moment,  in  the  hope  of  being 
saved;  and  St.  Wilfrid  said  that  under  the  same  circumstances 
he  would  not  desert  his  God.  Presently  Padda,  Meon's  pet  seal, 
came  up  out  of  the  sea  with  fish  in  his  mouth,  then  returned 
to  the  mainland  and  brought  help,  thus  saving  their  lives.  When 
they  were  rested  and  reclothed  Meon  offered  himself  to  be 
baptized.  Then  he  called  all  his  fishers  and  ploughmen  and 
herdsmen  into  his  hall  and  said  :  ".  .  .  Two  days  ago  I  asked  our 
Bishop  whether  it  was  fair  for  a  man  to  desert  his  fathers'  Gods 


PLOTS  AND  THEIB  SIGNIFICANCE  209 

in  a  time  of  danger.  Our  Bishop  said  it  was  not  fair.  .  .  .  You 
can  tell  your  mates  that  even  in  that  place,  at  that  time,  hang- 
ing on  the  wet  weedy  edge  of  death,  our  Bishop,  a  Christian, 
counselled  me,  a  heathen,  to  stand  by  my  father's  Gods.  I  tell 
you  now  that  a  faith  which  takes  care  that  every  man  shall  keep 
faith,  even  though  he  may  save  his  soul  by  breaking  faith,  is 
the  faith  for  a  man  to  believe  in.  So  I  believe  in  the  Christian 
God,  and  in  Wilfrid  His  Archbishop,  and  in  the  Church  that 
Wilfrid  rules. " 

There  is  a  hint  in  this  speech  of  the  qualities  which  distinguish 
Kipling's  didactic  stories  from  all  others,  the  complete  incarna- 
tion of  the  idea,  the  dramatic  intensity,  the  concreteness  and 
vividness.  For  one  feels  throughout  the  vigorous  yet  kindly 
personality  of  the  saint  who  tells  the  tale,  and  in  this  speech, 
that  of  the  open-minded  worshipper  of  Odin.  The  story  teaches 
tolerance,  but  that  word,  I  think,  is  not  mentioned.  St.  Wil- 
frid's reply  to  Puck's  statement  that  he  had  converted  the  South 
Saxons — "Yes.  if  the  South  Saxons  did  not  convert  me" — is  the 
nearest  approach  to  it.  And  even  in  that  speech  of  Meon's, 
which  is  not  at  all  descriptive  in  purpose,  Kipling's  visualizing 
power  spontaneously  asserts  itself  in  the  phrase,  "hanging  on 
the  wet  weedy  edge  of  death." 

In  one  story  only,  The  House  Surgeon,  Kipling  has  attempted 
to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Conan  Doyle.  Kipling  is  not  alto- 
gether successful.  "I  was  more  bewildered,"  he  admits,  "than 
any  Doctor  Watson  at  the  opening  of  a  story." — "I  am  less 
calculated  to  make  a  Sherlock  Holmes  than  any  man  I  know, 
for  I  lack  both  method  and  patience. ' '  This  is  probably  literal 
true.3 


literal]* 

/ 

?en  story 


3  One  additional  phase  of  external  structure,  connection  between  story 
and  story,  hardly  deserves  special  mention.     The  revival  of  old  characters 


210  KIPL1  VG    I  II I    STOBI    H  BI1  i  i: 

In  certain  stories  Kipling  returns  to  the  technical  jargon  of 

tin- first  period.  Tin  shift  Umi  Found  Herself  and  Tin  Devil  and 
tin  Dap  Sea  are  extreme  examples.  They  are  Largely  unintelli- 
gible to  the  normal  reader  simply  because  he  does  not  know 
what  the  words  mean.  For  under  some  conditions  the  sug- 
gested short-story  may  be  unintelligible.  Tims  "They,"  Ki|>- 
ling's  most  subtle  application  of  this  method,  can  mean  little 
or  nothing  unless  one  keeps  in  mind  certain  biographical  details 
and  reads  the  verses  at  the  beginning.  The  significance  of  the 
incidents  of  Marklakt  Witches,  on  the  other  hand,  is  hidden,  not 
from  the  reader,  but  only  from  the  character  who  narrates  them. 
Concerning  Internal  Structure  there  is,  on  the  whole,  noth- 
ing new  to  note.  The  stories  which  we  have.  for  one  reason  or 
another,  analyzed  in  some  detail,  Marklakt  Witches,  Th<  Brush- 
wood Hoy,  "They,"  reveal  Kipling's  architectural  powers,  in  the 
way  of  careful  preparation,  foreshadowing,  elaboration  of  great 
climactic  scenes;  powers  which,  however,  he  does  not  always 
choose  to  exercise.  Many  of  the  Puck  and  of  the  h'<  wards  stories 
are,  for  example,  rather  series  of  scattered  reminiscences  than 
highly  organized  and  unified  wholes.  They  thus  reveal  a  ten- 
dency in  the  direction  of  the  condensed  long-story,  manifest  also, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  Tin  li rush  wood  Boy,  a  tendency  which  is 
especially  apparent  in  those  tales  which  carry  on  the  same  series 
of  events  from  one  to  another.  The  Joyous  Venture,  though  it 
constitutes  but  a  single  chapter  in  the  lives  of  Hugh  and  Richard, 
has  an  almost  epic  breadth;  and  the  three  stories  of  Parnesius 
amount  to  biography  of  their  hero,  beginning  with  the  charming 


has  been  discussed.  A  number  of  the  Puck  and  Rewards  stories  carry  on 
the  same  action.  Pyeeroft  and  Hinchcliffe  appear  in  Mrs.  Bathurst,  Bonds 
of  Discipline,  Their  Lawful  Occasions,  and  Steam  Tactics;  McPhee,  the 
engineer,  in  Ifrur/ylrsmith  and  Bread  Upon  tin    Waters. 


PLOTS  AND  THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE  211 

picture  of  his  boyhood  on  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  ending  with  the 
vivid  account  of  the  climax  of  his  career  on  the  Roman  "Wall. 
On  the  other  hand  the  tendency  to  fall  short  of  short-story  re- 
quirements, to  write  mere  anecdote,  or  at  least  to  publish  it  in 
book  form,  disappears  with  Life's  Handicap  at  the  end  of  the 
first  period.  Concrete  detail  holds  its  own.  We  have  already 
seen  with  what  wealth  of  imaginative  realization  Kipling  re- 
creates Queen  Elizabeth,  and  how  completely  he  is  able  to  visual- 
ize eleventh-century  life  as  seen  through  the  eyes  of  Hugh  and 
Richard.  He  is  no  less  at  home  with  the  Indians  in  the  American 
woods :  says  Brother  Square-Toes,  ' '  How  a  great  tall  Indian 
a-horseback  can  carry  his  war-bonnet  at  a  canter  through  thick 
timber  without  brushing  a  feather  beats  me!  My  silly  head  was 
banged  often  enough  by  low  branches,  but  they  slipped  through 
like  running  elks. ' '  /  One  may  find  similar  passages  in  every 
story;  Kipling's  power  of  imagining  details,  of  vivifying  them, 
putting  them  in  action,  is  no  less  astonishing  than  his  power  of 
observing  and  assimilating  them/  Many  of  his  minor  incidents, 
moreover,  are  admirably  suggestive.  Richard,  for  example,  de- 
scribing the  horrors  of  their  "Joyous  Venture,"  emphasizes  the 
terrifying  mystery  of  the  African  forest,  and  concludes,  "I 
think  it  was  the  silence  we  feared."  And  Kipling  adds,  "He 
paused  to  listen  to  the  comfortable  home  noises  of  the  brook." 
In  spite,  however,  of  all  this  effective  attention  to  detail,  the  old 
breaks  in  tone  do  now  and  then  recur,  as  in  The  Brusliwood  Boy; 
though  many  stories,  such  as  An  Habitation  Enforced,  are  free 
from  them. 

No  more  in  his  third  period  than  in  his  first  is  Kipling  a 
moral  philosopher :  he  is  not  in  the  least  concerned  with  abstract 
moral  problems  or  with  moral  codes.     But  he  is,  as  always,  dis- 


212  KIPL1NC   THE  STOh'Y    WHITER 

posed  to  regard  specific  action  as  conduct:  he  is  still  disposed 
to  preach;  and  his  preaching  has  now  become  more  conventional, 
more  nearly  in  keeping  with  accepted  English  notions.  We 
have  already  noted  the  tender,  half-didactic  purpose  of  the  Just 
So  Stories.  Writing  primarily  for  young  people  in  Puck  of 
Pooh's  Hill  and  Reirarrfs  and  Fairies  he  conies  again  naturally 
to  lay  a  special  stress  upon  right  action.  He  does  not  discover 
new  duties;  hut  he  celebrates  the  old  ones  in  a  stirring  and 
salutary  fashion,  so  that  there  is  in  these  two  volumes  an  ex- 
ceedingly effective  morality.  Already  expressed  there  in  terms 
of  action,  it  is  simple,  easily  grasped,  and  very  portable,  likely 
therefore,  to  be  spontaneously  translated  at  need  into  the  deeds 
of  actual  life.  The  stories  of  Richard  and  Hugh  are  typical  in 
this  way.  They  form  the  history  of  a  splendid  friendship.  The 
Saxon  youth  and  the  Norman  have  been  fellow-students  in 
France.  They  meet  again  after  Hastings,  and,  neither  recogniz- 
ing the  other,  begin  a  combat.  Hugh's  foot  slips  and  his  sword 
Mies  from  his  hand ;  Richard  forbears  to  strike.  Then  a  clump 
of  Saxons  run  out  upon  them  and  Hugh  cries  out  that  Richard 
is  his  prisoner  and  saves  his  life.  And  even  when  Richard  is 
put  in  possession  of  Hugh's  manor  Hugh  remains  faithful, 
sleeping  as  a  voluntary  hostage  among  Richard's  men-at-arms. 
When  as  old  men  they  are  exploring  the  coast  of  Africa,  Hugh 
leaps  ashore  among  the  gorillas  whom  they  take  for  devils.  "I 
was  afraid  to  my  four  bones'  marrow,"  Richard  tells  the  chil- 
dren, "lint  for  shame's  sake  1  followed."  Even  so  the  faithful 
Wiglaf  came  to  Beowulf's  rescue  in  his  fight  with  the  dragon. 
For  these  ideals  of  loyalty  in  friendship  and  of  emulation  are 
of  the  best  Germanic  tradition;  and  the  combat  with  the  gorillas 
that  follows  suggests  specifically  Beowulf's  several  encounters 


PLOTS  AND  THE1E  SIGNIFICANCE  213 

with  hostile  monsters.  Like  the  Anglo-Saxon  hero  in  the  fight 
with  Grendel's  mother,  Sir  Kichard  is  saved  only  by  his  mail- 
shirt.  Hugh's  sword,  like  those  in  the  Beowulf,  is  Weland's 
work,  marked  with  runes,  and  has  a  personality  of  its  own ;  and 
like  the  Sword  of  Vengeance  in  a  Danish  ballad  it  has  power  of 
speech  or  song.  After  the  battle  in  which  Richard  and  Hugh 
are  crippled,  Witta,  to  comfort  them,  shows  them  the  gold  which 
they  had  won,  just  as  Wiglaf  exhibits  the  treasure  to  the  dying 
Beowulf.  Thorkild's  comment  on  the  general  anxiety  during 
the  homeward  voyage — "Better  be  drowned  out  of  hand  than  go 
tied  to  a  deckload  of  yellow  dust ' ' — suggests  a  bit  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  poet's  moralizing.  The  parting  with  Witta  might  find  a 
place  in  the  Beowulf:  "He  made  no  promise;  he  swore  no  oath; 
he  looked  for  no  thanks ;  but  to  Hugh,  an  armless  man,  and  to 
me,  an  old  cripple  whom  he  could  have  flung  into  the  sea,  he 
passed  over  wedge  upon  wedge,  packet  upon  packet  of  gold  and 
dust  of  gold,  and  only  ceased  when  we  would  take  no  more.  As 
he  stooped  from  the  rail  to  bid  us  farewell  he  stripped  off  his 
right-arm  bracelets  and  put  them  all  on  Hugh's  left" — thus 
following  the  familiar  custom  of  the  Germanic  chieftain  or 
"ring-giver."  Thorkild's  song,  finally,  sounds  like  an  echo 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Seafarer: 

Hoe — all  you  gods  that  love  brave  men, 
Send  us  a  three-reef  gale  again ! 

Send  us  a  gale,  and  watch  us  come, 
With  close-cropped  canvas  slashing  home ! 

So  Dan  and  Una  enter  into  possession  of  their  splendid  heritage 
of  Anglo-Saxon  ideals  of  conduct.  They  learn  of  the  significance 
of  friends,  of  the  moral  value  of  sport,  of  the  duties  of  gratitude, 


214  KIPLING   TIN-:  STORI    WRITER 

of  courtesy,  <>t'  fidelity  to  one's  given  word,  "It   is  knightly  to 
keep  faith,  even  after  a  thousand  years." 

We  have  already  noted  the  tolerance  implied  in  Th(  Con- 
version of  St.  Wilfrid,  and  the  antisocialistic  doctrine  of  the 
fables,  which  is  simply  a  phase  of  the  old  plea  for  The  System, 
The  Team,  The  Machine  in  which  every  wheel  dors  its  work. 
Beside  this  doctrine,  however,  there  still  persists  the  old  boyish 
recalcitrance,  the  sympathy  with  those  opposed  to  the  existing 
order.  Thus  Dan  and  Una  are  in  the  secrets  of  Hobden's  poach- 
ing and  of  the  gipsies'  thefts,  and  instinctively  side  with  their 
friends.  Steam  Tactics  and  Their  Lawful  Occasions  reveal  the 
same  attitude.  They  are  stories  of  children  of  a  larger  growth. 
( >ne  of  them  reflects  a  healthy  delight  in  the  kidnapping  of  a 
rural  policeman  and  in  the  defiance  of  speeddimit  laws;  the 
other,  in  the  clever  outwitting  of  half  the  English  fleet  by  the 
gaily  irresponsible  crew  of  a  discredited  destroyer.  And  the 
methods  set  forth  in  the  admirable  Bread  upon  //"  Waters  are 
not  precisely  legal. 

The  vein  of  satire  still  persists,  though  for  the  most  part  with- 
out the  bitterness  of  the  earlier  stories.  In  An  Error  in  tin 
Fourth  Dimension,  My  Sunday  at  Home,  and  The  Captive,  one 
may  learn  Kipling's  opinion  of  Americans;  of  the  French,  in 
Bonds  of  Discipline;  of  the  British  army  in  South  Africa,  in 
Privatt  C<jj)p<r;  of  the  navy,  in  Their  Lawful  Occasions;  of 
the  rural  constable,  in  Steam  Tactics;  of  the  M.  P.'s  knowledge 
of  Indian  affairs,  in  Little  Foxes;  of  the  difficulty  of  approaching 
men  in  power,  in  The  Puzzler;  of  stingy  ship  owners,  in  Bread 
Upon  thi  Waters.  In  all  these  satirical  tales,  however,  there  is 
present  a  vein  of  pure  comedy,  or  of  farce,  or  of  practical  joke ; 
grave  and  serious-minded   men   play   tricks   on   one  another  in 


PLOTS  AND  THEIB  SIGNIFICANCE  215 

the  style  of  Mulvaney  and  Ortheris  or  Stalky  and  Company.  In 
general,  one  can  safely  assert,  Kipling  has  the  old  enthusiasms 
and  the  old  prejudices,  and  the  old  contradictory  views  in  regard 
to  the  System  and  the  Individual. 

In  one  story,  however,  there  is  some  wholly  new  and  very 
surprising  criticism  of  life.  This  is  With  the  Night  Mail,  the 
account  of  an  airship  flight  across  the  Atlantic  in  the  year  2000, 
together  with  the  reviews,  notes,  answers  to  correspondents, 
and  advertisements  of  the  magazine  in  which  it  appeared.  By 
the  year  two  thousand,  we  shall  have  learned  that  we  are  only 
our  fathers  reenlarged  upon  the  earth.  We  shall  have  ceased  to 
regard  unspeakable  torment  as  a  possibility  of  the  life  beyond 
death.  "War,"  a  correspondent  is  informed,  "War,  as  a  paying 
concern,  ceased  in  1967.  .  .  .  The  Convention  of  London  ex- 
pressly reserves  to  every  nation  the  right  of  waging  war  so  long 
as  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  traffic  and  all  that  implies." 
A  mark  boat,  hanging  in  the  air  somewhere  in  midocean,  with 
"her  black  hull,  double  conning-tower,  and  ever-ready  slings 
represent  all  that  remains  to  the  planet  of  that  odd  old  word 
authority.  She  is  responsible  only  to  the  Aerial  Board  of  Con- 
trol. .  .  .  But  that  semi-elected,  semi-nominated  body  of  a  few 
score  of  persons  of  both  sexes,  controls  this  planet.  '  Transporta- 
tion is  Civilization,'  our  motto  runs.  Theoretically,  we  do  what 
we  please  so  long  as  we  do  not  interfere  with  the  traffic  and  all 
it  implies.  Practically,  the  A.  B.  C.  confirms  or  annuls  all  inter- 
national arrangements  and,  to  judge  from  its  last  report,  finds 
our  tolerant,  humorous,  lazy  little  planet  only  too  ready  to  shift 
the  whole  burden  of  public  administration  on  its  shoulders." 
One  can  scarcely  believe  that  this  is  Kipling:  the  cessation  of 
war,  the  breaking  down  of  national  distinctions  implying  the 


216  KIPLING   Till-:  STOBY   WRITES. 

disappearance  <>!'  patriotism  and  of  national  prejudices,  the 
admission  of  women  to  a  part  in  government.  One  fears  that 
Kipling  himself  will  find  very  little  to  his  taste  when  lie  is 
"re-enlarged"  on  this  planet  in  the  year  2000  under  the  condi- 
tions of  his  own  imagining.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he 
believes  these  things;  still  less  that  he  seriously  advocates  them. 
The  significant  thing  for  lis  is  the  fact  that  he  is  thinking  aboul 
them,  that  he  is  dreaming,  even  for  a  moment,  of  an  ideal  recon- 
struction of  society  as  a  whole,  in  place  of  an  English  army 
which  shall  include  the  whole  male  population  of  the  island. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CONCLUSION 

This  third  or  English  period  of  Kipling's  work  is,  then,  a 
time  of  achievement,  of  the  culmination  of  the  main  tendencies  of 
technique ;  but  it  is  as  well  a  time  of  certain  new  characteristics. 

Geographically,  he  bids  farewell  to  his  own  particular  field,  to 
India,  and  discovers  the  special  charm  of  England,  of  the  English 
landscape,  with  its  ordered  beauty,  its  sense  of  rest,  of  finality, 
its  emotional  associations.  While  his  main  concern  is  still  with 
the  present,  he  does  in  certain  stories  write  of  the  past,  bring- 
ing it  forward  however  into  the  present,  by  virtue  of  an  American 
or  colonial  sense  of  the  historicity  or  historical  associations  of 
the  English  scene.  A  single  story  deals  with  the  future.  He  still 
sees  Society  as  a  System ;  in  it  even  the  lower  animals  must  per- 
form their  functions,  just  as  the  locomotives  of  a  railway  or  the 
parts  of  a  ship  must  work  together  for  a  common  end.  Delight 
in  machinery  is  an  easy  acquisition  for  one  who  has  habitually 
thought  of  men  as  the  wheels  of  a  machine. 

.  Among  the  characters  of  this  period  certain  old  friends  re- 
appear, sometimes  under  new  names,  sometimes  under  the  old 
ones.  New  characters  are  added,  from  America,  from  France, 
and  from  the  English  past.  These  characters  and  their  emotions 
reveal  themselves  dramatically,  by  word  and  gesture ;  and  so  far 
as  the  emotions  go,  there  is  perhaps  an  increase  in  the  tendency 
to  evoke  the  reader's  tears  or  laughter  by  an  emphasis  upon  those 


218  KIPLING  Till:   STOBI   WEITEB 

of  the  persons  of  the  story.     On  the  whole,  one  carries  away 

from  the  reading  of  these  later  stories  the  impression  of  a  finer 
and  more  delicate  sentiment  than  that  of  the  earlier,  nowhere 
more  charming  than  in  .1/;  Habitation  Enforced  and  Marklaki 
Witches.  The  Latter  story  reconstructs,  as  we  have  seen,  a  sen- 
timental age,  deals  with  a  sentimental  character,  yet  does  not 
itself  pass  over  the  boundary  between  sentiment  ami  sentimen- 
talism,  as  Nodier  and  Irving  did,  in  dealing  in  that  age  itself 
with  similar  themes.  Kipling's  sense  of  humor  gives  no  evidence 
of  suffering  loss.  There  are  as  many  mirth-provoking  tales  in 
the  last  period  as  in  the  first,  and  there  are  some  farces  and  prac- 
tical jokes  among  them.  But  the  subtlety  of*  manner  is  increased  ; 
we  are  further  from  the  fabliau:  there  is  less  coarseness,  more 
refinement  of  humor.  There  is  the  same  increase  in  the  delicacy 
of  the  treatment  of  the  passion  of  love.  The  old  cynicism  lias 
wholly  or  almost  wholly  disappeared  ;  the  seventh  commandment 
is  never  in  peril.  Love  stories  are  uncommon,  however;  indeed 
Tht  Brushwood  Boy  is  the  only  one  which  is  concerned  wholly 
with  this  theme.  Like  the  more  ideal  of  the  earlier  love-stories 
Tht  Brushwood  Boy  has  a  definite  quality  of  " other-worldi- 
ness, ''  offers  an  escape  from  life,  a  contrast  with  the  comic  and 
realistic  Tales  as  sharp,  almost,  as  the  medieval  contrast  of  Im 
and  fabliau. 

For  Form,  for  External  Structure,  Kipling's  narrative  is 
still  intensely  personal,  and  this  quality  reaches  its  culmination 
in  the  lyrical  short-story  of  "They,"  lends  it  its  peculiar  charm. 
This  same  persona]  quality  is  manifest  in  the  Just  So  Stories, 
which  in  their  technique  carry  on  the  ancient  tradition  of  the 
oral  tale,  with  its  special  vocabulary,  rhythmic  repetitions,  and 
light   didactic  touch.      The   most   important    achievement   of  the 


CONCLUSION  219 

period  in  the  way  of  external  structure  is,  however,  the  frame- 
work of  Puck  of  Pool's  Hill  and  Re  wards  and  Fairies,  the  most 
admirable  device  of  its  kind  since  the  Canterbury  Tales.  Other 
special  types  or  forms  of  the  period  are  the  fable  or  allegory,  the 
dream,  the  alien  critic,  the  exemplum-conte  devot,  the  detective 
story,  the  technical,  and  the  suggested  story. 

For  Internal  Structure  there  is  nothing  new  to  note.  There 
is  abundant  evidence  of  an  architectural  power,  which  is,  how- 
ever, by  no  means  always  exercised.  In  spite  of  the  presence  of 
much  careful  preparation  and  foreshadowing  and  of  some  im- 
pressive and  highly  elaborated  scenes,  all  suggestive  of  grasp 
of  the  whole,  Kipling's  art  remains  less  Greek  than  Gothic,  less 
careful  of  form  in  the  larger  sense,  of  dimensions,  proportions, 
than  of  excellence  of  detail.  Concreteness,  vividness  of  char- 
acteristic detail  remain  his  special  virtues  to  the  end.  The  old 
breaks  in  tone  persist,  like  the  grotesque  gargoyles  of  a  Gothic 
cathedral ;  though  a  few  of  the  stories  are  quite  free  from  them. 
The  anecdote  has  disappeared  ;  but  there  still  persists  the  opposite 
tendency  to  overstep  the  natural,  or  at  least,  the  academic,  limits 
of  the  short-story,  to  write  condensed  long-story,  necessitating 
summary  with  only  occasional  and  illustrative  action  and  dia- 
logue. Yet  there  are  many  true  short-stories,  of  admirable 
architecture.  "They,"  for  example,  could  have  been  produced 
in  this  period  alone. 

While  Kipling  no  longer  begins  his  story  with  a  text,  as  in 
Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills,  yet  lie  still  remains  loyal  to  his  two 
grandfathers,  the  Wesleyan  preachers :  a  goodly  number  of  his 
stories  are  didactic.  He  holds  forth  on  the  old  themes.  Only 
With  the  Night  Mail  is  exceptional,  with  its  astonishing  picture 
of  a  future  society  enjoying  universal  peace  and  universal  suf- 


220  KIPLING   THE  STORY   WB1TEB 

frage!     In  the  meantime  his  satire  of  things  as  they  are,  remains 

without  (or  almost  without)  bitterness,  and  pure  comedy — farce 
or  practical  joke — holds  its  own. 

The  tendencies,  then,  of  the  first  period  are  still  active  in 
the  third — the  shift  from  observation  to  reminiscence  is  still 
going  on,  the  delight  in  an  escape  from  life  still  runs  alongside 
of  delight  in  life  itself.  There  is  still  further  widening  of  sym- 
pathetic psychology;  a  continued  increase  in  the  subtlety  of 
personal  intervention,  in  general  excellence  and  delicacy  of  the 
narrative  art.  The  suggested  story  reaches  its  climax,  as  does 
the  unintelligible  story.  Satire,  at  least  of  the  bitter  sort,  has 
largely  disappeared.  While,  then,  the  same  formula  holds:  in- 
crease in  Imagination  and  Sense  of  Form;  decrease  in  self-asser- 
tion; escape  from  overpowering  Sense  of  Fact;  it  is  also  true 
that  the  force  of  these  tendencies  has  not  been  sufficient  to  effect 
a  transformation.  Kipling  remains  to  the  end  what  his  training 
and  his  personality  made  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  career.  His 
greatness  still  lies,  not  in  his  reasoning  powers,  not  in  his  moral 
interpretation  or  criticism  of  life,  not  in  his  sense  of  form,  but 
rather  in  his  sense  of  fact,  vivid,  concrete,  and  humanly  interest- 
ing; in  a  power  of  imagination  closely  related  to  this  sense  of 
fact ;  in  an  emotional  or  even  sensational  appeal ;  and  in  intensity, 
in  vital  energy.  With  the  single  exception  of  Chaucer,  he  is  the 
most  powerful  personality  of  all  those  who  have  expressed  them- 
selves in  the  short-storv. 


INDEX  OF  TITLES  221 


INDEX  OF  TITLES 

The  name  of  the  collection  in  which  each  tale  appears  is  given  in 
parentheses;  the  number  that  follows  indicates  the  position  of  the  tale  in 
the  collection.  Use  has  been  made  of  The  Works  of  Rudyard  Kipling, 
New  York,  Doubleday  and  McClure  Company,  1899,  containing  Plain  Tales 
from  Hie  Hills,  Soldiers  Three,  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  In  Black  and 
White,  Under  tlie  Deodars,  The  Phantom  Rickshaw  and  Other  Tales,  Wee 
Willie  WinTcu  and  Other  Stories,  Life's  Handicap,  being  Stories  of  Mine 
Own  People,  The  Light  tliat  Failed,  Many  Inventions,  The  Jungle  Book, 
The  Second  Jungle  Book,  The  Day's  Work,  From  Sea  to  Sea.  For  the  later 
stories  the  following  editions,  all  published  by  Doubleday,  Page  and  Com- 
pany, New-  York,  have  been  used:  Stalky  and  Company,  1900;  Kim,  1901; 
Just  So  Stories,  1903;  Traffics  and  Discoveries,  1904;  Puck  of  Pool's  Hill, 
1906;  Actions  and  Reactions,  1909;  Rewards  and  Fairies,  1910. 

At  Howli  Thana  (In  Black  and  White,  3).     -43. 

At  the  End  of  the  Passage  (Life's  Handicap,  ?),     6f,  30,  31,  45,  81,  86, 
96,  108,  122,  135,  140,  153,  161.     . 

At  the  Pit's  Mouth  (Under  the  Deodars,  2).     27,  89,  96,  104. 

At  Twenty-Two  (In  Black  and  White,  5).     85,  88. 

-Baa  Baa,  Black  Sheep   (Wee  Willie  Winkie,  2).     15,  45,  101,  102,   106, 
112,  122,  171,  198,  201. 

Bank  Fraud,  A  (Plain  Tales,  24).     45,  70,  102. 

Bathurst,  Mrs.  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  10).     210n. 

Below*  the  Mill  Dam   (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  11).     208. 

Bertran  and  Bimi  (Life's  Handicap,  13).     43,  87,  90,  96,  108. 
-Beyond  the  Pale   (Plain   Tales,  22).     28,  80,  82,  87,  96,   135,  184. 

Big  Drunk  Draf',  The  (Soldiers  Three,  4).     40. 

Bisara  of  Pooree,  The   (Plain   Tales,  32).     36. 

Black  Jack  (Soldiers  Three,  4).     39,  85,  94. 

Bonds  of  Discipline,  The   (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  2).     172,  210n.,  214. 

Bread  Upon  the  Waters  (The  Day's  Work,  9).     139,  192,  210n.,  214. 

Bridge  Builders,  The  (The  Day's  Work,  1).     169,  208. 

Broken-Link  Handicap,  The  (Plain  Tales,  24).     95. 

3ronckhorst  Divorce  Case,  The  (Plain  Tales,  30).     36,  103,  107. 

Brother  Square-Toes  (Rewards  and  Fairies,  6).     161,  172,  211. 


222  6  //'/./  \<;   THE  8T0R1    WRIT,ER 

"Brugglesmith"  (Monti  Inventions,  10).     L39;  210n. 
/Brushwood  Boy,  The  (Tin    Dun's  Work,  12).     102,  L70,  L81ff.,  L95,  200, 

210,  211,  218. 
1<y  Word  of  Mouth  (Plain  Tales,  89).    198. 
Captive,  The  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  I).    214. 
Children  op  the  Zodiac,  The  (Many  Inventions,  14).     L39,  L58. 
Comprehension  op  Private  Coppeb  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  5).     '-'14. 
Conference  op  the  Powers,  A  (Mann  Inventions,  8).     138. 
Conversion  op  Aurelian  McGoggin,  The  (Plain  Talis,  in.    8,  29,  31,  4A_ 

107.   L57. 
Conversion  he  St.  Wilfrid,  Tiik  (Beu-ards  and  fairies,  8).    208f.,  214. 
•COURTING    OP    Dinah    SHADD,   The    (Life's    Handicap,    it.      5,    11,    20,    34n, 

40,  41,  42n.,  50,  93,  135. 
Daughter  ok  the  Regiment,  The  (Plain   Talis,  26).     39,  8*. 
Deal  in  Cotton,  A  (Actions  and  Reactions,  5).     L02,  170. 
Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea,  The  (The  Day's  Work,  .',).     1<;s),  210. 
Disturber  of  Traffic,  The  (Mann  Inventions,   I).     139. 
Dray  Wara  Yow  Dee  (In  Black  and  Whit,,  1).    18f.,  43. 
Dream  of  Duncan  Parrenness,  The  (Life's  Handicap,  27).     50n. 
Drums  op  the  Fore  and  Aft  (Wee  Willie  Wmkie,  4).     10,  19f.,  L09. 
Education  of  Otis  Yeere,  The  (Under  the  Deodars,  I),    it,  82,  86,  92,  103. 
Error  in  the   Fourth  Dimension,  An  (The  Day's  Work,   10).     172.   L95, 

214. 
False  Dawn   (Plain   Tales,  6).     37,  84. 
Fatima  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  6).     47. 

Finest  Story  in  the  World,  The  (Many  Inventions,  5).     L38,  L58. 
Friend's  Friend,  A  (Plain   Tales,  33).     34. 
From  Sea  to  Sea.     19u,  38n,  62f.,  131. 
Garden  of  Eden,  The  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  5).     4ii.  ~"> 

GARM-A   Hostage   (Actions  and   Reactions,  2).      170. 
Gate  of  the  Hundred  Sorrows,  The  (Plain  Talis,  84).     43. 
GLORIANA    (Rewards  and   Fairies.  2).      173. 
God  from  the  Machine*  The  (Soldiers  Thru.  ! ).     39f.,  83f. 
Habitation    Enforced,  An    (Actions  and   Reactions,    I).      163,    172,    L79f., 

211,  218. 
Head  of  the  District,  The  (Life's  Handicap,  5).     10. 
Her   Majesty's  Servants   (The  Junyle  Book,  7).     155,  157. 
Hill  op  Illusion,  The  (Under  th<    Deodars,   i).     49,  50,  82.  91,  123,  L36, 

184.  \ 


INDEX  OF  TITLES  223 

His  Chance  in  Life   (Plain   Tales,  10).     85,   103n. 
|  His  Majesty  the  King  (Wee  Willie  Wirikie,  3).     15,  45,  66,  .£7^.90,  136, 

177,  179,  198. 
His  Private  Honour  (Many  Inventions,  6).     137. 
House  Surgeon,  The  (Actions  and  Reactions,  8).     193. 
How  Fear  Came  (The  Second  Jungle  Book,  1).     142,  144,  155. 
How  the  First  Letter  Was  Written  (Just  So  Stories,  8).     205. 
/  Incarnation  or  Krishna  Mulvaney,   The    (Life's  Handicap,   1).     5,  9, 

40f.,  50,  94,  135. 
In  Error  (Plain  Tales,  23).     68,  103n. 
In  Flood  Time  (In  Black  and  White,  6).     43. 
In  the  House  of  Suddhoo  (Plain  Tales,  19).     35,  81,  85,  104. 
Jx  the  Matter  of  a  Private  (Soldiers  Three,  8).     29,  31,  45. 
In  the  Pride  of  His  Youth  (Plain  Talcs,  27).     29,  31,  69,  77,  102. 
In  the  Eukh   (Many  Inventions,  9).     139ff.,  143,  144,  157. 
Judgment  of  Dungara,  The   (In  Black  and   White.  2).     18,  45,  101,  208. 
Judson  and  the  Empire   (Many  Inventions,  13).     139. 
Just  So  Stories.    203ff.,  212,  218. 
Kaa's  Hunting  (The  Jungle  Book,  2).    142,  144,  155. 
Kidnapped  (Plain  Tales,  17).    9n.,  87,  88,  136,  177. 
Kim.     1711.,  112,  170. 

King's  Ankus,  The  (Second  Jungle  Book,  5).     143,  144ff.,  155. 
Knife  and  the  Naked  Chalk,  The  (Rewards  and  Fairies,  5).     179. 
Knights  of  the  Joyous  Venture,  The   (Puck  of  Poole's  Hill,  3).     210, 

211ff. 
Lang  Men  o'  Larut,  The  (Life's  Handicap,  12).     43,  54,  55,  58,  139n. 
Letting  in  the  Jungle  (Second  Jungle  Book,  3).     143,  155. 
Light  That  Failed,  The.     14,  99. 
«/Lisfeth   (Plain  Tales,  1).     17f.,  44,  45,  58f.,  61,  101,  138,  208. 
Little  Foxes  (Actions  and  Reactions,  7).     125n.,  214. 
Little  Tobkah  (Life's  Handicap,  21).     55. 
Lost  Legion,  The  (Many  Inventions,  8).     137. 
Love-o '-Women  (Many  Inventions,  11).     137. 
Madness  of  Private  Ortheris,  The  (Plain  Tales,  35).    28f.,  31,  37,  39,  44, 

85,  86. 
Maltese  Cat,  The  (The  Bay's  Work,  8).     207. 
Man  Who  Was,  The  (Life's  Handicap,  4).     5,  29f.,  31,  82,  85f.,  90,  98f., 

135. 
/  Man  Who  Would  be  King,  The  (The  Phantom   'Bickshatv,  4).     34,  52,  86, 

90,  120,  135,  139. 


224  KIPLING   THE  STORY    117,777:/,' 

Maki.akk  Witches  ( Rewards  and  Fairies,  I).     I76f.,  181,  183,  12 1  o,  218. 
Mark  of  the  Beast,  The  (Lift  's  Handicap,  0).    21,  22,  36,  it,  88,  96,  L35. 

Mattes  op  Fact,  A  (Many  Inventions,  7).     138. 

Miracle  of  Purun  Bhaqat,  The  (Second  Junglt   Book,  IB).     L54,  L55. 

Miss  Yoi-ghal's  Sais  t  Plain   '/'<(/<  .v,  ■/>.     li),  35,  102. 

Mother  Hive,  Tiif.  (Actions  and  Reactions,  3).     207. 

Mori  Guj— Mutineer  (Life's  Handicap,  22).     108,  138. 

Mmvci.i's   Brothers  (  The  Jungle  Book,  1).     142,  144,   L55. 

My  Lord  the  Elephant  (Minn/  Inventions,  3).    138. 

My  Sunday  at  Home  (The  Dan's  Work,  in.     L62,  172,  181,  214. 

.007  (Th\   Bay's  Work,  7).     168,  207. 

NAMGAY  Doola   (Lift's  Handicap,  11).     44. 

Of  Those  Called  (Soldiers  Three,  2).    43. 

On  Greenhgw  Hill  (Life's  Handicap,  3).    40,  41,  52,  87,  93,  94,  135,  139. 

Ox  the  City  Wall  (In  Black  and  White,  8).     9n.,  27f'.,  37,  51n.,  84,  85,  89, 

91,  104. 
On  the  Great  Wall  (Puck  of  Book's  Hill,  6).    170f. 
Oxe  View  of  the  Question'  (Main/  Inventions,  4).     138,  208. 
Oxly  a  Subaltern  (Under  the  Deodars,  6).    12,  19,  90,  170,  177. 
Other  Man,  The  (Plain  Talcs,  12).     27,  36. 

Phantom  Rickshaw,  The  (The  Phantom  Rickshaw,  1).    21f.,  2(5,  50n.,  198. 
Poor  Dear  Mamma  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  1).     46,  48. 
Private  Learoyd's  Story  (Soldiers  Three,  3).    39. 
Puck  of  Pool's  Hill.    206ff.,  219. 
Puzzler,  The  (Actions  and  Reactions,  6).     181,  214. 
QuiQUERN   (Second  Junglt    Book,  6).     153,  155,  160. 
Record  of  Badalia  Herodspoot,  The  (Mann  Inventions,  12}.     139. 
Red  Dog  (Second  Jungle  Book,  7).     143,  144,  155. 
Beingelder  and  the  German  Flag   (Life's  Handicap,    14).     43. 
Rescue  op  Pluffles,  The  (Plain  Tales,  ?).    13,  50. 

Return  of  Imray,  The  (Life's  Handicap,  10).     21,  22,  36,  44,  90,  96,  135. 
Rewards  axd  Fairies.     206ff.,  219. 
Rikki-Tikki-Tayi   (The  .1  angle  Book,  5).     154,  155. 
Rout  of  the  White  Hussars,  The  (Plain   Tales,  29).     36. 
SAHIB'S  War,  A  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  3).     138,  208. 
Second  Rate  Woman,  A  (Under  the  Deodars,  5).    82,  88,  92. 
Ship  that  Pound  Herself,  The  (The  Day's  Work,  S).     168,  207,  210. 
Solid  MULDOON,  The    (Soldiers   Three,  6).     40. 
Spring  Running,  The  (Second  Jungle  Book).     143,  144,  155. 


INDEX  OF  TITLES  225 

Stalky  &  Co.     112ff.,  125n. 

Steam  Tactics  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  6).     210n.,  214. 

Story  of  Muhammad  Din,  The  (Plain  Tales,  6).    16,  44,  72,  198. 

Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  The.     24,  46ff.,  102,  123,  184. 

Strange  Eide  of  Marrowbie  Jukes,  The   (The  Pluintom    'Bickshaw,  3). 
20,  86,  88f.,  119. 

Swelling  of  Jordan,  The  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  8).    47. 

Taking  of  Lungtungpen,  The  (Plain  Tales,  15).     39,  43,  98. 

Tents  of  Kedar,  The  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  3).     46,  48. 

Their  Lawful  Occasions   (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  4).     193,  210n.,  214. 
-"They  "7 Traffics  and  Discoveries,  9).    134,  179,  194ff.,  205n.,  210,  218,  219. 

Three  and — an  Extra  (Plain  Tales,  2).     13,  35,  50,  103. 

Three  Musketeers,  The  (Plain  Tales,  9).     34n.,  39. 

Thrown  Away  (Plain  Tales,  3).     12,  19,  34,  36,  44,  80,  177. 

Tiger!   Tiger!    (The  Jungle  Boole,  3).     141,  142,  144,  148,  155. 

To  be  Filed  for  Eeference  (Plain  Tales,  40).     27f.,  81,  87f.,  136,  177. 
/Tods'  Amendment  (Plain  Tales,  25).     15,  16,  108. 

Toomai  of  the  Elephants  (The  Jungle  Book,  6).     154,  155. 

Track  of  a  Lie,  The  (The  Phantom   'Bickshaw,  3).     34n. 

Undertakers,  The  (Second  Jungle  Book,  4).     155. 

Valley  of  the  Shadow,  The  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  7).     47. 

Walking  Delegate,  A  (The  Day's  Work,  2).     160f.,  207. 

Watches  of  the  Night  (Plain  Tales,  11).    45,  102. 

Wayside  Comedy,  A  (Under  the  Deodars,  3).     31. 

Wee  Willie  Winkie  (Wee  Willie  Winkie,  1).     15,  135,  1$8, 

Weland's  Sword  (Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,  1).     165. 

White  Seal,  The  (The  Jungle  Book,  4).     152,  153f.,  155,  157,  160. 

William  the  Conqueror  (The  Day's  Work,  6).     170,  181,  199. 

With  Any  Amazement  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  4).    46. 

With  the  Main  Guard  (Soldiers  Three,  ?).     40,  51n. 

With  the  Night  Mail  (Actions  and  Reactions,  4).     169,  215f.,  219. 
ithout  Benefit  of  Clergy  (Life's  Handicap,  6).     5,  28,  66,  69ff.,  86, 
90,  91,  98,  108,  120,  125,  134,  135,  170,  184,  198,  200.  . 

World  Without,  The  (The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  2).     46,  48. 

Wreck  of  the  Visigoth,  The  (Soldiers  Three,  5).     43. 

Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office.     25f.,  35f.,  44,  103n. 

Wrong  Thing,  The  (Bernards  and  Fairies,  3).     180. 
)  Yoked  with  an  Unbeliever  (Plain  Tales,  5).     27f. 

Young  Men  at  the  Manor  (Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,  2).     181. 


42  1     8 


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